Paul Xavier Gleason (May 4, 1939 – May 27, 2006) was an American film and television actor.
Death of Paul Gleason
Gleason died on May 27, 2006 at a Burbank, California hospital from mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer connected with asbestos, which he is thought to have contracted from asbestos exposure on building sites while working for his father as a teenager
Career
Gleason starred in many movies, and became well-known initially as Dr. David Thornton on All My Children, playing the role from 1976 to 1978. He is perhaps best remembered for his role as Richard Vernon, the gruff disciplinary principal in the seminal 1985 movie The Breakfast Club. He reprised versions of that character several times, including in an A*Teens music video, on the television show Boy Meets World (although he was a dean on BMW) and in the films Johnny Be Good and Not Another Teen Movie. As a bookend to his modern fame as strict disciplinarian, Gleason played a tough yet forgiving and nurturing professor to the lead character in Van Wilder.
Gleason is known to Star Wars fans for his role as Jeremitt Towani in the 1985 made-for-TV film The Battle for Endor. He played the villainous Clarence ‘Mr’ Beeks in the famous 1983 comedy Trading Places starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. He also played Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T Robinson, the blowhard police official in Die Hard.