- Richard Riehle has died at the age of 78.
- The prolific character actor was best known to many fans as Tom Smykowski in Office Space.
- His extensive career included roles in The Fugitive, Grounded for Life, Star Trek and hundreds of other projects.
Richard Riehle, the veteran character actor who memorably played frustrated Initech employee Tom Smykowski in the cult comedy Office Space, has died. He was 78 years old.
Riehle died of natural causes in Los Angeles on Oct. 15, friends of the actor told TMZ. Over the course of his remarkably busy career, he appeared in more than 400 film, television, and other projects, becoming one of those familiar faces audiences might recognize even if they did not immediately know his name.
Richard Riehle Became An ‘Office Space’ Favorite
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Born May 12, 1948, in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, Riehle studied at the University of Notre Dame, graduating in 1970 after performing and working as a stage manager in student productions. He eventually earned an MFA from the University of Minnesota and spent years working in theater before establishing himself as a dependable Hollywood character actor. His Broadway debut came in 1986 in Execution of Justice.
For many movie fans, however, his defining role came in Mike Judge’s 1999 comedy Office Space. Riehle played Tom Smykowski, an anxious employee whose increasingly disastrous work life eventually takes a very unexpected turn. Although the movie was not a major box-office success upon its release, it later developed an enormous following on home video and cable television and became one of the era’s best-known workplace comedies.
His Career Spanned Hundreds Of Movies And TV Shows
Riehle appeared seemingly everywhere during his decades onscreen. Movie audiences may remember him from The Fugitive, Of Mice and Men, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Lethal Weapon 4, Mercury Rising and Wedding Crashers. On television, he had a recurring role as Walt Finnerty on Grounded for Life and appeared in multiple Star Trek series, along with shows including The West Wing, ER, Home Improvement, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, NCIS and The Middle.
Even late in his career, Riehle continued working steadily, adding new film and television roles to a résumé that stretched across several generations of Hollywood. His ability to move easily between comedy and drama made him both a familiar presence for decades and a uniquely talented Renaissance man of an actor, whether he was playing an exasperated office worker, an authority figure, or simply the memorable supporting character who could steal a scene with only a few lines.
