Peter Van Norden, the actor who appeared in the Police Academy and Naked Gun films, has died. He was 75.

Van Norden’s son, Robert, announced that his father died on Thursday.

“Peter passed away peacefully last night with his wife, Wendy, at his side,” Robert wrote in an Instagram post. “He was a terrific father, husband, friend, and a greatly respected member of the theater community. He will be missed.”

Born Dec. 16, 1950, Van Norden earned his first acting credit in the late 1970s in the comedy Squeeze Play. He went on to appear in numerous film projects, including the 1985 Police Academy follow-up, entitled Their First Assignment. There, Van Norden portrayed policeman Vinnie Schtulman, the first partner of Steve Guttenberg’s Carey Mahoney.

Another sequel, he acted in the second Naked Gun movie in 1991, where he took on the role of John Sununu, President George H. W. Bush’s former White House chief of staff.

On the small screen, he has acted in Three’s A Crowd (1985); an episode of Silver Spoons; a 1991 episode of Matlock; L.A. Law (1990-1992); The Stand; Murder, She Wrote (1989-1996); two 2004 episodes of Days of Our Lives; and 9-1-1 (2019).

Van Norden’s film credits include The Accused; An Innocent Man; Love Hurts; Hunky Dory; and West Virginia, among others.

Outside film and TV, Van Norden had an extensive stage career, appearing in various Broadway, off-Broadway and regional productions. His Broadway stints included features in St. Joan, Macbeth, Little Johnny Jones, Romeo and Juliet and The Inspector General. He performed his final stage role last year in Corktown ’39 at Los Angeles’ Matrix Theatre.

Van Norden was also part of The Rehearsal Room actors workshop, which “help[s] actors and artists grow their careers through challenging material.” Last August, he partook in breaking down Shakespeare’s Richard III.

He is survived by his wife, Wendy, and their son, Robert.

UPDATED, 6:05 PM: Scripps Local Media’s 54 broadcast stations have returned to DirecTV after a six-month blackout over a carriage dispute. The companies said Friday that they have agreed on a multiyear deal. The blackout affected such major markets as including Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Nashville, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Tampa-St. Petersburg and others.

PREVIOUSLY, May 31: Programming on Scripps Local Media’s 54 broadcast stations across 36 Nielsen-designated market areas has been suspended beginning at 7 p.m. ET today, as the third-largest operator of ABC affiliates and DirecTV have reached an impasse over retransmission rates with both sides laying blame at each other’s proverbial feet.

In a statement, the multichannel distributor said Scripps is “demanding the highest rates DIRECTV has ever received from a station group, which would continue to dramatically raise costs for consumers and businesses already struggling with affordability. After DIRECTV declined those demands and sought a more reasonable agreement, Scripps chose to remove its stations from viewers in several major markets nationwide.”

With dozens of television stations going dark, DirecTV noted the outage will impact voters ahead of key state and local primary elections in June and disrupt live sports events like the upcoming NBA and NHL Stanley Cup finals on ABC and the U.S. Open golf tournament on NBC. Scripps operates 17 ABC affiliates, including KTNV-ABC in Las Vegas, where the hometown Golden Knights will face off against the Carolina Hurricanes in the NHL championship. Next week will see the highly anticipated NBA-title-deciding matchup between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs.

“Broadcasters like Scripps continue to accumulate exclusive control over local sports teams or other civic content, only to then deny viewers access at times of peak demand,” the statement from DirecTV continued. “This enables stations to leverage municipal pride and fan loyalties to demand higher guaranteed retransmission rates from distributors like DIRECTV to carry their free, over-the-air stations, despite rising regulatory and public concern over escalating television and other day-to-day costs, and amid the growing availability of multiple streaming alternatives.”

The blackout has impacted cities including Baltimore, Boise, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Lexington, Miami, Milwaukee, Nashville, Omaha, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Tampa-St. Petersburg and West Palm Beach, among others.

DirecTV also noted Scripps’ removal of 40 stations from Comcast Xfinity in 19 markets for over a month, starting April 1.

“We understand customers are frustrated by temporarily losing their usual access to Scripps stations and the local news, network programming, and live sports they provide,” Rob Thun, chief content officer at DirecTV, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Scripps is demanding the highest rates we have ever seen for programming that remains available for free over-the-air and through many station, network, and third-party streaming apps. We remain committed to protecting customers from indiscriminate and unnecessary cost increases for less popular programming while still working to restore the stations that many viewers rely on.”

In a statement sent to Deadline, Scripps disputed its characterization by DirecTV, noting it has been “engaging in good-faith negotiations with DirecTV to establish an equitable agreement that serves both companies and, most importantly, consumers. Regrettably, DirecTV has elected to remove Scripps local stations from their lineup, employing the same heavy-handed tactics that have become synonymous with pay-TV operators who hurt their own subscribers by using them as bargaining chips in contractual disputes. By contrast, Scripps stations have gone dark only twice since we began broadcasting in the 1940s.”

“Scripps remains committed to reaching a fair resolution that restores our local stations to DirecTV’s paying subscribers,” the statement concluded. “At stake is our viewers’ fundamental access to trusted local journalism, critical weather alerts, emergency information and live sports programming that strengthens community bonds — all essential public interest content in which Scripps invests substantially every day.”

Christopher Nolan is the latest major filmmaker to praise the breakout horror hits Obsession and Backrooms.

In a new interview with The Telegraph promoting his upcoming epic The Odyssey, Nolan reflected on the lengths he went to in order to make the film feel authentic, including traveling the world and assembling a “cast of thousands.”

“I think cinema is vital and essential and continues to transform itself,” the Oscar winner said. “We’ve got all these great new young voices in movies, making the medium their own and moving it forward.”

The article states that Nolan pointed to Curry Barker and Kane Parsons — the filmmakers behind Obsession and Backrooms — as evidence that “things are on the right track.” Both horror films have made history at the box office.

Barker’s Obsession, released May 15, has grossed more than $400 million globally on a $750,000 budget. The film became the highest-grossing festival acquisition of all time after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and is now Focus Features’ highest-grossing release ever.

Meanwhile, Parsons’ Backrooms has surpassed $350 million globally and is A24’s highest-grossing film in a number of countries. Parsons, 21, also became the youngest director to top the domestic box office.

“This is why I never bought into the arguments that young audiences’ attention spans are too fried to enjoy a three-hour Greek epic,” Nolan said. “Those films are so mysterious and ruminative. I mean, parts of Backrooms are like David Lynch at his most obscure. And yet young people can’t get enough of them.”

The Oppenheimer director continued: “I’ve never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime. So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI, but if you look at that generation’s reaction, they’re utterly rejecting it.”

Nolan also cited his children, who are in their late teens and early 20s, as examples.

“Their judgment of AI slop has been immediate and harsh. They see it for what it is very quickly — and it’s much easier for them to identify it, because it grew out of an online world they know really well,” he explained. “While that doesn’t mean that every aspect of the technology is useless or meaningless, in filmmaking it’s hitting at exactly the wrong time. After years of driving towards heavily virtual environments, we’re seeing a renewed interest in more tactile, more real forms of storytelling.”

That sentiment was echoed when The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Gen Z moviegoers about the rise of younger filmmakers like Barker and Parsons.

“Audiences in general, but especially audiences my age, are getting so overwhelmed by all of the CGI movies — the Marvel epidemic. It really deterred a lot of people from wanting to go and see these big-budget movies,” one moviegoer said.

Nolan isn’t the only legendary filmmaker championing the next generation of talent. Steven Spielberg also recently praised Obsession, saying he “loved” the film and applauded Barker for making it on a budget of less than $1 million. 

As far as Nolan’s next film, The Odyssey, which tells the story of Odysseus’ long, torturous trip back to Ithaca after the Trojan War to save his wife Penelope and son Telemachus. The star-studded cast includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Jon Bernthal, Travis Scott, Elliot Page, Lupita Nyong’o and more. The movie releases in theaters on July 17.

Check out all of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Obsession coverage here and Backrooms coverage here.