'Will & Grace' star Charles C. Stevenson dies at 95

Charles C. Stevenson Jr., who showed off his acting chops in The Office, Shameless and many more popular shows, has passed away at the age of 95.

The actor, who among other credits is widely famous for playing bartender Smitty on Will & Grace, breathed his last on January 19.

His son Scott announced the upsetting news, confirming that his beloved father died due to natural causes in Camarillo, California.

In the wake of Charles’s death, his son honoured him in a heartfelt tribute, saying, “In his own words, his job was ‘marrying or burying people.’”

“As he told it, the panic-stricken director would invariably come to him to beg him to find a way to fill in unscripted space between ‘We are gathered here together’ (where he’d probably get his close-up) and the ‘amen’ at the end of the scene (where he usually wouldn’t),” Scott told Variety in a statement. “Stevenson admitted that he got pretty good at that.”

Having served in the Navy during the Korean War before studying English at UC Berkeley, Charles began acting at age 50 after moving to Los Angeles to work in public service.

Raised in Piedmont, California, he made his onscreen debut in a 1982 episode of NBC’s Voyagers!

Since then he went on to appear on shows Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Boy Meets World, Charmed, Cheers, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Designing Women, Dynasty, ER, Family Matters, Glee, Gilmore Girls, House, Knots Landing, LA Law, Matlock, Melrose Place, Murder, She Wrote, Scrubs, Sister, Sister, Six Feet Under.

With his stellar résumé, Charles also earned roles in films including Ed Wood (1994), Ghost World (2001), Men in Black (1997), Pleasantville (1998), and The Naked Gun (1988).