Erich Anderson, active actor and author, died at the age of 67

Erich Anderson, a veteran actor who broke through with his role in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and had recurring roles on such series as Felicity, Bosch and Thirtysomething, has died. He was 67.

Anderson’s wife, actor Saxton Trainor, confirmed the news via Instagram but declined to comment, saying she was “too distraught to write anything.” Instead, she shared a statement from Anderson’s brother-in-law, Michael O’Malley, saying the actor died on Friday after a “brutal battle with cancer.”

“Erich was such an incredible human being,” Anderson’s manager Chris Carbaugh told the Times. “He was a great actor, writer, chef, husband, friend and human being. … Erich was an avid sports fan and loved cheering on his beloved San Diego Padres baseball team. He was always the smartest and funniest person in the room and had such a big heart. … Erich will be greatly missed.”

O’Malley, meanwhile, wrote that his brother-in-law was “a smart and witty guy, a fantastic cook; he wrote three great novels. … I will miss him, but his ordeal is over.”

Anderson first got his start when he was, as O’Malley described it, “murdered in a basement” in the sequel to Friday the 13th. He then appeared in Thirtysomething as Billy Sidel, married to Ellyn Warren (Polly Draper) after a blind date, and in Felicity as Dr. Edward Porter, the father of Keri Russell’s title character.

He has appeared in individual episodes of series such as Murder, She Wrote, CSI, CSI: Miami, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Dr. House, Bones and NCIS. In total, he has appeared in more than 300 television episodes, 50 theater productions and 20 feature films, according to his website.

Born in Sagamihara, Japan in 1957, the actor later graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology.

He was a prolific writer of scripts for television episodes and, according to his website, had a “filing cabinet full of unproduced screenplays.” Anderson published three novels: “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” “Thy Kingdom Come,” and “Rabbit: A Golf Fable.”

Eve Gordon, who played Anderson’s wife Barbara Porter in “Felicity,” posted a touching tribute to her co-star on Instagram, calling the actor “a wonderful part of the world.”

“I loved him,” she wrote. “I wish you had known him, there was no one like him. So funny, so open to whatever the day brought him, so wickedly cynical and cheerful at the same time.”

Gordon described how, despite their characters in “Felicity” getting divorced and not seeing each other on set, they met by chance in Los Angeles and talked for hours.

“Ah, look at this, Erich, I’m using the past tense,” she wrote. “My friend, I hope to see you again in dreams and other dimensions. Fly high, my friend.”