Robert Swan, the veteran character actor who appeared in key roles in the notable sports films Hoosiers, Rudy and The Babe, has died. He was 78.Swan died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer at his home in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, his friend Betty Hoeffner told The Hollywood Reporter.
Swan also portrayed a Canadian Mountie in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) and a bloodied deputy in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994) and was other lawmen in Who’s That Girl (1987) and Mo’ Money (1992).Born in Chicago on Oct. 20, 1944, Swan sang at the Church of St. Paul & the Redeemer in Hyde Park as a youngster and with the chorus at the Lyric Opera and Chicago Symphony. He also acted in theaters around town and made it to Broadway in 1974 in The Freedom of the City.
His big-screen résumé also included Take This Job and Shove It (1981), Doctor Detroit (1983), Randal Kleiser’s Grandview, U.S.A. (1984), That Was Then.On television, Swan worked alongside Jane Fonda in the 1984 ABC telefilm The Dollmaker, based on the Harriette Arnow novel and directed by Daniel Petrie, and appeared on All My Children — as the bad guy Jeb Tidwell — Spenser for Hire and The Equalizer.