Ed Lauter

Veteran character actor in films and television, Ed Lauter or known as Edward Matthew Lauter, who carved out a niche in the 1970s playing mostly heavies in movies and TV and kept up a busy schedule in recent years with appearances in Clint Eastwood’s “Trouble With the Curve” and Oscar winner “The Artist,” died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles of mesothelioma, a form of cancer that affects tissue surrounding internal organs. Family spokesman Edward Lozzi announced his death.

“Many people say, ‘I acknowledge you,’ but they do not acknowledge my name,” Lauter assured The Times in 2012. “Merely I have accepted a great run.”

The 6-foot-2, balding actor accepted memorable characters in “Family Plot” -- which was Alfred Hitchcock’s concluding film, in 1976 -- along with “Born on the July 4,” “Seabiscuit,” “Breakheart Pass,” “Death Wish 3,” “French Connection II” and “The Longest Yard,” some the 1974 version and the 2005 remake about a football game pitting inmates against prison guards.

One of the movies that he worked out on 2012 > > >