RIP actor Earl Boen (Terminator series, World of Warcraft)
 

Actor Earl Boen died on January 5th. He began his career as a stage actor from the mid 60's to the mid 70's before transitioning to television and film.


Boen's television roles included Kojack, Hawaii Five-O, The Jeffersons, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Dukes of Hazzard, MASH, Mama's Family, The Golden Girls, and many others.


He was perhaps most well known as Dr. Peter Silberman in the Terminator series, appearing in the first three Terminator movies and in archive footage in Terminator: Dark Fate. Boen's other film roles included The Main Event, Battle Beyond the Stars, 9 to 5, Alien Nation, The Dentist, and Marked for Death.


In addition to his live action roles, Boen did voiceover work including the Narrator for World of Warcraft and numerous cartoons.



Boen was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2022. He was 81.

Sorry to hear about this...loved him in The Terminator and as one of Angela's bosses on Who's the Boss?

Re: RIP actor Earl Boen (Terminator series, World of Warcraft)
 

His visage and craft lives in the collective memory of our dreams. He will longer than the rest of us. He had a good run as supporting actor, an underappreciated category of the art, those stock characters who must gel as an immediate shorthand for the rest of the story to work. If you believed Arnold was a robot, it was, in part, because this guy was believable as a psychologist.

Very sad. I liked him a lot. He was excellent in every single Terminator film, no matter how big or small the part. His "nice" treatment of Sarah Connor in the first was funny at an inappropriate moment, then his laughing behind the scenes at Kyle Reese with the cops. In T2 we got to see the less-nice side of him, as he basically gave Sarah no quarter then paid for it when Sarah got the best of him and when he saw the T-1000. Finally in T3 when he was commiserating with Claire Danes about "...you find yourself imagining things, impossible things, crazy things, insane things... takes years to get over it." Then seeing Arnold again and the next you see, he's running away. 🙂

Also saw him in Naked Gun: 33 & 1/3: The Final Insult, The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Seinfeld, Marked for Death, and an episode of M*A*S*H. I know he'd done countless other shows and voice work. Just a utility player and a great one at that.
Godspeed, Earl.

Re: RIP actor Earl Boen (Terminator series, World of Warcraft)