As reported by The Wrap, character actor and New York theater staple Mark Blum—best known for his role in Desperately Seeking Susan and on the TV show You—has died from complications related to the COVID-19 coronavirus. The news was confirmed by the Playwrights Horizons theater company, which referred to Blum as a “dear longtime friend and a consummate artist” in a tweet about his death. Blum was 69.
Blum, who was born in New Jersey in 1950, got his start as a stage actor in the ‘70s, landing small roles in Lovesick and St. Elsewhere in the ‘80s before getting his first big break in Desperately Seeking Susan as Gary Glass, the husband of Rosanna Arquette’s character. A year later he appeared as newspaper editor Richard Mason in the first Crocodile Dundee. Blum also had a long career popping up in minor roles in dozens of TV shows across the past few decades, appearing in Roseanne, Wings, Frasier, NYPD Blue, The Sopranos, The West Wing, and seven episodes across the Law & Order franchise as six different characters. In more recent years, Blum had a regular role on Amazon’s Mozart In The Jungle as Union Bob and on You as bookstore owner Mr. Mooney, the mentor of sorts for Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg.
Blum is survived by his wife, Janet Zarish from One Life To Live and As The World Turns.