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Veteran character actor Vincent Schiavelli, aka the morgue-visiting science teacher Mr. Vargas from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, died of lung cancer yesterday at the too-young age of 57. He was a man whose name you may not remember but whose face you most certainly could never forget. His large, droopy features, at the same time kindly and creepy, conjured someone you might sooner meet wandering the spiraling staircases of a medieval Romanic monastery than the sunny streets of LA. From the NY Post obituary:

Things you didn't know about Vincent Schiavelli (besides his name): He played the first openly gay character on television, a set designer in a short-lived ABC sitcom called "The Corner Bar" in 1972. He won a James Beard Foundation journalism award in 2001 for a Los Angeles Times article on Sicilian cooking. He grew up in Bushwick and later lived in Sicily - but he said the two of them were pretty much the same. He played an alien on "Star Trek," a pagan on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and a conjoined twin on "The X-Files."


Oh, and he was selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of the best character actors in America, and maybe, just maybe more people knew him by his name, and not "that guy."

Another fun fact: He was married to Allyce Beasley Moonlighting's Miss DiPesto from 1985 until their divorce in 1988, producing one child, Andrea Schiavelli, who, it would appear, is not nearly as funny looking as his parents, and is an accomplished jazz musician!