NEW YORK — Philip Baker Hall, the prolific character actor of film and theater who starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movies and who memorably hunted down a long-overdue library book in “Seinfeld ...

This is FRESH AIR. Philip Baker Hall, the character actor known for his gruff voice and doleful demeanor, died Sunday at the age of 90. After decades of acting on stage, TV and film, his career took ...

Philip Baker Hall, an actor for his hangdog expressions, gruff-but-kind demeanor, and undaunted acting ability, has died. He was 90. Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio on September 30, 1931, served as a ...

Yet it wasn’t Hall’s productivity that stood out as much as his surprising constancy. To be sure, anyone who acted as long and as often as he did is bound to accumulate a diverse array of credits, but ...

Few actors, if any, have marched onto a sitcom juggernaut and in a few minutes of sublime, dyspeptic, no-nonsense nonsense made such an enduring impression as Philip Baker Hall did. As “Seinfeld’s” ...