Openly gay Ron Palillo, who is best known for playing high school student Arnold Dingfelder Horshack on the ABC comedy sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, has died. He was 63.
TMZ.com reported that Palillo’s longtime partner of 41 years, Joseph Gramm, called for an ambulance at around 4 a.m., Tuesday, Aug. 14. Palillo was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The actor, a heavy smoker, reportedly had scheduled a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday to see about a bad cough.
From 1975 through 1979, Ron Palillo played a high school student Arnold Horshack alongside John Travolta’s Vinnie Barbarino and others on the ABC sitcom.
Palillo authored two children’s books, The Red Wings of Christmas and A Gift for the Contessa, and wrote a full length play, The Lost Boy, which was produced in 2005 in New York. He also appeared in numerous Broadway productions.
In 1992, he told People magazine that his work on the stage had helped him overcome a crippling depression.
Palillo’s agent, Jacqueline Stander, told NBC News that Palillo had a heart attack and passed away in his sleep at his home in Palm Beach Gardens. His death comes just eight months after Hegyes, who played Sweathog Juan Epstein, also died of a heart attack.
Although Palillo shared his life with a man for more than four decades – including during the run of the show – he was not widely known to be gay.
Palillo lived in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. For about the last three years, he had been teaching at the G-Star School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, according to TMZ.
