R.I.P. Zack Norman, comedian and Romancing The Stone star

Zack Norman, the stand-up comic best known for his role in Romancing The Stone, has died, according to The Hollywood Reporter. His family announced that he died Sunday night of natural causes at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. He was 83 years old.

Norman, given name Howard Jerrold Zuker, was born in Boston in 1940. After receiving an executive MBA degree from Harvard Business School, he pursued stand-up comedy through the late 1960s. He eventually made his television debut on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson in 1969. He began working in film in the 1970s in front of and behind the camera, helping to finance the Oscar winning documentary Hearts And Minds in 1974.

As a performer, Norman broke big in the ’80s with his role in Romancing The Stone as Danny DeVito’s Cousin Ira (“Look at those snappers!”). He frequently collaborated with director Harry Jaglom, appearing in Tracks (1976), Sitting Ducks (1980), Venice/Venice (1992), Babyfever (1994), Déjà Vu (1997), Festival in Cannes (2001), Hollywood Dreams (2006), Irene in Time (2009), Queen of the Lot (2010), The M Word (2014) and Ovation (2015). Norman co-directed the 1988 movie Chief Zabu, which was left incomplete until 2016, and produced that film and others, often under the name Howard Zuker. (According to THR, Norman and his Romancing The Stone co-star Michael Douglas once got “into a legal spat over a company that they co-founded.”) He also appeared on television in shows such as Baywatch, The A-Team, The Flash, and The Nanny (as the uncle of star Fran Drescher, with whom he appeared in 1990's Cadillac Man).

Per THR, Norman is survived by his wife, Nancy; sister Jane; daughters Lori and Tracy; sons Stephen and Michael; and grandchildren Sascha, Addison, Benjamin, Henry, Liliana, Jonathan, Justin, Jayden, Jackie, Gabrielle, Rachel, Susie, Joseph and Seth. R.I.P.