TV star Dick Van Patten dead at 86

WASHINGTON – He was a familiar face for years on television.

Now, actor Dick Van Patten has died at 86.

Variety reports he died Tuesday morning at Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California, due to complications from diabetes.

Van Patten is best known for his role in the ’80s series “Eight is Enough,” where he played Tom Bradford, the father of eight children.

He also guest starred in “The Love Boat,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Sanford and Son,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “The Facts of Life.”

On the silver screen, he was best known in the Mel Brooks spoof comedies “High Anxiety,” “Space Balls” and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”

He was 86.

Jason Fraley

Hailed by The Washington Post for “his savantlike ability to name every Best Picture winner in history," Jason Fraley began at WTOP as Morning Drive Writer in 2008, film critic in 2011 and Entertainment Editor in 2014, providing daily arts coverage on-air and online.

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