RIP Dana Elcar

[MD-2389]

source

VENTURA, Calif. - Dana Elcar, the round-faced, balding actor whose real-life struggle with blindness was written into his role on the TV adventure series "MacGyver," has died. He was 77.

He died Monday of complications from pneumonia at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, his family said.

"MacGyver" ran on ABC from 1985 to 1992. Elcar played the best friend and boss of the crime-fighting title character, played by Richard Dean Anderson.

"At a time when I had very little business being called an actor, he made things so easy for me," Anderson said. "It was a learning experience that was very warm and loving for all seven years."

Elcar, who suffered from glaucoma, told producers he was going blind after four seasons with "MacGyver," so they adapted his character to match his medical condition. By the end of the show's run, he had become almost completely blind.

"The fact that you are losing your eyesight does not mean you have forgotten how to act," Elcar, in a speech to the National Federation of the Blind in 1991, recalled producers telling him.

[JMEaT]

I loved MacGyver.