Tom Bower, a character actor who made memorable turns in The Waltons and in Die Hard two, died in his sleep in his Los Angeles home on the night of May 30. He was 86 years old. The exact cause of death is currently unknown.
He is survived by his children, Rob and Vivica, as well as his brother Robert and his sister Shirley. His wife Ursula, a lawyer to whom he was married for 51 years, died last August.
Bower played the fan-favorite sidekick Marvin the Janitor, whose odd manners and habits were key to defeating the bad guys, opposite Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2: Die Harder. In the film, Marvin haunted the basement at Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport, where he had horded a stash of blueprints and gadgets that allow John McLane to get the upper hand against a group of expert mercenaries who are holding the entire airport hostage against the release of a Central American drug lord.
He also played family doctor Curtis Willard on The Waltons for three seasons. His character hired Mary Ellen Walton to be his nurse, and the two eventually fell for one another and started a family together. Curtis Willard was killed off during show’s episode dealing with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 2022, Bower revealed in an interview that his character was written out because he’d asked the producers for a raise. Later, the writers decided to bring the character back in a plot where he was recovered from being lost at sea after the attack, and he demanded the same raise, so the producers cast a different actor.
Bower had originally aspired to play professional baseball, but realized that he had no talent for sports. Instead, he moved to New York in 1956 to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After completing his education in drama, he worked as a private investigator until he landed a small role in an early Al Pacino film “The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel.”
