NEW YORK, NY.- Peter Crombie, an actor who was probably best known for his memorable portrayal of “Crazy” Joe Davola on five episodes of “Seinfeld,” died Jan. 10 in a health care facility in Palm Springs, California. He was 71.
His ex-wife, Nadine Kijner, confirmed the death. She said he had been recovering from surgery, but did not specify its nature.
Crombie’s Joe Davola is a temperamental character who develops a deep hatred of Jerry — a semi-fictionalized version of the hit sitcom’s star and co-creator, comedian Jerry Seinfeld — and ends up stalking him. His first appearance was in “The Pitch,” an episode in the show’s fourth season, in which they encounter each other at the NBC offices and Joe, a writer, ends up blaming Jerry when the network rejects a script he has written. His final appearance was in the season finale, when he tries to disrupt the taping of the show-within-a-show that the fictional Jerry has created for himself.
Tall and lanky, Crombie’s character had a flat, borderline menacing affect and an unblinking 1,000-yard stare. He also briefly dated and then stalked Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), at one point plastering a wall of his apartment with black-and-white surveillance photos of her. In the episode “The Opera,” bitter over being jilted by her, he disguises himself as a clown to pursue her at a performance of “Pagliacci.”
Crombie’s acting credits also included roles in the movies “Se7en” (1995), “Natural Born Killers” (1994), “Rising Sun” (1993) and “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989). He portrayed the Frankenstein monster in the 1997 TV movie “House of Frankenstein” and had roles on “LA Law,” “NYPD Blue” and other series.
Crombie was born June 26, 1952, and grew up near Chicago. His father was an art teacher, and his mother taught home economics. He trained at the Yale School of Drama before moving to New York.
Crombie and Kijner met in Boston in the late 1980s and married in 1991. Although they divorced after about six years of marriage, they remained friends.
“He was like a rock,” Kijner said. “He was someone you could always call and lean on.”
Crombie is survived by a brother, Jim.
Kijner said Crombie stepped back from acting around 2000 and worked on his other passions, one of which was writing.
In a post on social media, comedian Lewis Black called Crombie a “wonderful actor” and an “immensely talented writer.”
“More importantly,” Black wrote, “he was as sweet as he was intelligent.”
Larry Charles, a “Seinfeld” writer and producer, also offered praise for Crombie.
“His portrayal of Joe Davola managed to feel real and grounded and psychopathic and absurd and hilarious all at the same time,” Charles wrote on social media. “This was a juxtaposition I was always seeking on my Seinfeld episodes and reached a climax of sorts with ‘The Opera.’”
“Seinfeld,” Charles added, “was a sitcom that could make you uncomfortable, and no guest actor walked that line better than Peter.”
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
