The Chickens Must Have Gotten Him

Harve Presnell, best remembered as Lew Staziak, hard-ass, pansy-hating, chicken-fearing, faulty-memoried semi-retired private dick and former inhabitant of Andy Barker’s strip mall rented office on the criminally underappreciated Andy Barker, P.I., has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 75. Presnell’s rich baritone made him a star on the stage and a few screen musicals, such as The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Paint Your Wagon, where he sang “They Call the Wind Mariah.” He then found a second life as a character actor after playing William H. Macy’s hard-ass father-in-law on Fargo, including such roles as hard-ass Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall in Saving Private Ryan.