Goodfellas actor Beau Starr dead at 81: Halloween franchise star played for the NFL before Hollywood career
Character actor Beau Starr, known to movie fans for Goodfellas and the Halloween franchise, has died at the age of 81.
He began his public career as a football player under the name Bill Starr, spending three seasons on the taxi league of the New York Jets.
After his time in the NFL, he pivoted to acting in his 30s and landed his role as the toughminded Sheriff Ben Meeker in the fourth and fifth Halloween movies.
In 1990, he featured in Goodfellas as the father of mafioso Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta amid a cast including Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.
A memorable early scene in the film shows Starr’s character beating his son with a belt for playing truant from school for months amid his drift into organized crime.
Starr died peacefully of natural causes at home in Vancouver on April 24, his younger brother and fellow actor Mike Starr shared this week with TMZ.
Character actor Beau Starr, known to movie fans for Goodfellas and the Halloween franchise, has died at the age of 81; pictured in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers in 1988
Mike hailed his late elder brother as ‘very unique and special,’ describing him as a major influence on him who helped his parents raise him.
Born in New York City in 1944, Beau Starr played college football upstate at Hofstra and, after his time in the New York Jets, joined the Canadian Football League.
He was already in his mid-30s by the time he embarked on his acting career, beginning in 1980 with the Canadian sketch comedy show Bizarre.
Over the course of its run, the series featured such comic talents as Bob Einstein – later known as Marty Funkhauser on Curb Your Enthusiasm – and Howie Mandel.
By 1982 he had landed his big screen Hollywood debut in the shape of Hanky Panky, a comedy directed by Sidney Poitier and starring Gilda Radner and Gene Wilder.
Six years later he joined the franchise for which he is most associated, playing Sheriff Ben Meeker in the 1988 film Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.
His character is portrayed as a hard-nosed lawman who bravely pursues the titular serial killer but tragically loses his teenage daughter Kelly in the process.
Starr was back for the 1989 release Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, reprising the role of the sheriff he described as ‘a John Wayne type of guy’ in a behind-the-scenes interview he gave on the set.
In 1990, he featured in Goodfellas as the father of mafioso Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta amid a cast including Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci
He began his public career as a football player under the name Bill Starr, and is pictured at that time in a photo posted by his friend and Goodfellas co-star Christopher Serrone
After Halloween 4, Starr was back for the 1989 release Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, reprising the role of the sheriff he described as ‘a John Wayne type of guy’
Over the course of the 1990s, Starr (left) acted with names like and Denzel Washington (center) in Devil in a Blue Dress, in which the two men are pictured with John Roselius (right)
Starr also acted in the 1993 movie Joshua Tree alongside George Segal (right), the star of such classics as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A Touch of Class
In 1990 he featured in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, in which he beat the young version of the Liotta character played by Christopher Serrone.
During the abuse scene, Liotta’s voiceover drily remarked in retrospect that his father ‘was mostly p***ed because I hung around the cabstand’ with the gangsters.
‘He knew what went on at that cabstand, and every once in awhile I’d have to take a beating. But I didn’t care. The way I saw it, everyone takes a beating sometimes.’
Christopher Serrone was among the friends who memorialized Starr this week, hailing him on Instagram as ‘a great guy’ who led a ‘rich’ and ‘meaningful life.’
Over the course of the 1990s, Starr acted with names like George Segal in Joshua Tree and Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress.
He enjoyed a prolific TV career in the 1980s, featuring on such iconic series as TJ Hooker, Cagney Lacey, Three’s Company, Knight Rider, St Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, The A-Team, MacGyver, Moonlighting and Matlock.
His small screen work continued through the 1990s with appearances on shows like Murder, She Wrote; Hunter and NYPD Blue.
Starr held a main role on the 1990s Canadian TV crime comedy Due North, which was about the Mounties collaborating with Chicago law enforcement.
He continued acting well into the 21st century, with his last credited role being on a 2013 episode of Psych, starring James Roday Rodriguez and Dule Hill.