Earl Boen, a veteran character and voice actor best known for playing the ill-fated Dr. Peter Silberman in the “Terminator” movies, died Thursday in Hawaii, Variety reported. He was 81 years old.
Boen was diagnosed with lung cancer last year, his family told Variety.
Boen played a forensic psychologist who was brought in for questioning by Michael Biehn’s character, Kyle Reese, in the first “Terminator” film. Reese returned from the future trying to kill the Terminator, a cyborg played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a desperate move to save the human race from the machines in James Cameron’s popular 1984 sci-fi film.
Boen also appeared in the sequels “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” – when he ignores heroine Sarah Connor’s (Linda Hamilton) cyborg warning – and “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”. He was also in stock footage in 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate.
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Actor Robert Patrick, who played the cyborg villain in “Terminator 2” (Schwarzenegger was the good guy), hailed Boen on Twitter as “a great actor and a great guy.”
Boen has worked on several other films, TV series and video games in his career.
His films include “9 to 5”, “Living in Peril”, “The Prince”, “Sioux City”, “Marked for Death”, “Alien Nation”, “The Main Event”, “Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final” . Insult’ and ‘Mad Professor II: The Klumps’.
His extensive television work has included roles on The Streets of San Francisco, Hawaii Five-O, Wonder Woman, Cops, Barnaby Jones and The Dukes of Hazzard.
He was also the voice of Mr. Bleakman in “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” Ghost Pirate LeChuck in the Monkey Island video games, and Charles “Rhino” Daly in the “Batman” animated series, among a number of other voice roles. . .
But his iconic role will always be Dr. Silberman, a mildly nerdy, well-intentioned doctor who doesn’t quite understand what’s really going on.
He is survived by his wife Cathy, daughter Ruby and two grandchildren.
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