Peter Greene, a character actor whose unnerving screen presence helped define several 1990s films, has died at his New York City home, his manager said. He was 60. The Associated Press said a cause of death had not been released.
Gregg Edwards, Greene’s manager, told the wire service that Greene died at home on Friday and called him “arguably one of the greatest character actors on the planet.” Edwards also told NBC News that a wellness check was requested after reports that music had been playing in Greene’s apartment for over 24 hours. Authorities said they did not suspect foul play.
Greene became widely recognized for playing Zed, the pawnshop security guard in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” and Dorian Tyrell, the gangster antagonist in “The Mask.” His film credits also included “The Usual Suspects,” “Under Siege 2: Dark Territory,” “Blue Streak,” “Training Day,” and “The Bounty Hunter,” along with television work on series such as “The Black Donnellys,” “Life on Mars,” and “Justified.”
Colleagues and fans often fixated on Greene’s villains, yet his best work frequently came when he carried a film rather than menaced from the edge. In “Clean, Shaven,” he played a man with schizophrenia, a performance that earned him a best actor prize at Italy’s Taormina Film Festival, according to reporting in the U.K.
Greene himself spoke candidly about the risks of being associated with brutal material. In a 2011 interview cited in that report, he said, “When I got the script, I was thoroughly disappointed,” explaining that he initially passed on “Pulp Fiction” before agreeing after conversations with Tarantino.
Edwards, who said he and Greene had been friends for over a decade, remembered a “totally normal” phone call days before the actor’s death and said Greene had been preparing for surgery to remove a benign lung tumor. He added that Greene had been working on a documentary about U.S. Agency for International Development funding and a film project titled “Mascots.”
