Gerrit Graham died Tuesday in Rhinebeck, N.Y., at age 77, closing out a career that moved from acting into screenwriting and songwriting. Although Graham was also a screenwriter and songwriter, the headline remains his screen work and the death itself: a performer whose credits reached film, television and a Grateful Dead collaboration is gone.
Rhinebeck, N.Y. and 77
77 is the number that now defines the end of his run, but it does not capture how wide the work spread. He suffered from lung disease, among other ailments, and had lived in Rhinebeck, N.Y. for the last 30 years of his life, serving on the Burger Hill Preservation Society while there. Deborah, whom he married in 1982, survives him, along with two children and four grandchildren.
From Hi Mom! to Deep Space Nine
Graham began his career alongside Robert De Niro in early Brian de Palma films Hi Mom! and Greetings, then kept moving across formats. He appeared in Demon Seed, Pretty Baby, Child’s Play 2 and National Lampoon’s Class Reunion, and later turned up in Seinfeld, Laverne and Shirley, The Wonder Years, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager.
He also played Beef in Brian de Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise and a sleazy used car salesman in Used Cars, roles that show why casting directors kept using him as a character actor who could shift tone fast. On the screenwriting side, he worked on The Little Mermaid, Oliver & Company and episodes of The Twilight Zone, then co-wrote the Disney adaptation of Prince and The Pauper with his brother, Chris Hubbell.
Bob Weir and Built To Last
One of Graham’s more unusual credits came through Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead: he co-wrote Victim or The Crime, which was recorded by The Grateful Dead for Built To Last and later by Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman on Live in 1998. That single song ties his name to a very different corner of the entertainment business, where writing credits can travel from a studio set to a live album and keep earning attention long after the original release.
He is survived by his brother, Sam, his sons Jack and Henry, their wives Talia and Joelle, and his four grandchildren, Nolan, Micah, Vera and Joey. For readers who knew him only as a face in Phantom of the Paradise, the cleaner read is this: Graham left behind enough film, television and music work to be remembered as a working professional first, and a cult favorite second.
