Bruno Kirby, a versatile character actor with a flair for comedy who was best known for his roles in "When Harry Met Sally ... " "City Slickers" and "Good Morning, Vietnam," has died. He was 57.
Kirby died Monday in a Los Angeles hospital from complications of recently diagnosed leukemia, said family spokesman Bill Harrison.
A native New Yorker with a distinctively high, husky voice, Kirby played the by-the-rules lieutenant who lacked a sense of humor in "Good Morning, Vietnam" (1987), Billy Crystal's good friend in both "When Harry Met Sally ... " (1989) and "City Slickers" (1991) and Marlon Brando's nephew in "The Freshman" (1990).
In a stage, screen and television career that spanned the last 35 years, Kirby also played Young Clemenza in "The Godfather: Part II" and appeared in such films as "The Basketball Diaries," "Sleepers" and "Donnie Brasco."
"I think he was an incredibly thoughtful actor," said Barry Levinson, who directed Kirby in "Tin Men," "Good Morning, Vietnam," "Sleepers" and a 1995 episode of NBC-TV's "Homicide: Life on the Street."
"He really thought through what he was going to do so he could begin to work up a character, and he had great specificity to the little things he'd bring to the character he was playing," Levinson told The Times on Wednesday.
In the 1987 comedy-drama "Tin Men," in which Kirby played a salesman named Mouse, "he ended up putting wax or something behind his ears to make them extend out a little more, and he played the character as very fastidious," Levinson said.
In "Sleepers," Levinson said, Kirby showed up with the top of his head shaved bald.
"He was always thinking about how to embellish a character, sometimes in a very subtle way, but to bring something else to the table," Levinson added.
Rob Reiner, who directed Kirby in "When Harry Met Sally ... " and the 1984 comedy "This Is Spinal Tap," in which Kirby played a limo driver, remembered his longtime friend as "one of the most generous persons I have ever met in my life."
"I think that sensitivity he had toward other people is what he was able to use in his work," Reiner told The Times on Wednesday.
"He was also able to blend incredible honesty with humor" in his roles, said Reiner, who first met Kirby in the 1970s. "That's a rare combination you find in actors -- that they become so truthful and real and yet are able to inject humor into it."
