RoboCop star Tom Noonan, the towering character actor whose unsettling presence and meticulous craft made him a cult favorite across film and theater, has died at 74. His death was announced by longtime friend and collaborator Karen Sillas, who said he “passed peacefully” and remembered him as both an artistic catalyst and a cherished companion. No cause of death has been made public.

Born in Greenwich, Connecticut, Noonan began his career on the stage, emerging from New York’s vibrant theater scene. He appeared in the original Off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, honing a style that blended emotional precision with an almost spectral physicality. That combination would later define his screen work, where he specialized in characters who were at once terrifying and deeply human.

Noonan moved into film in the early 1980s with roles in Willie & Phil, Gloria and Heaven’s Gate, but his breakthrough came with Michael Mann’s Manhunter. As Francis Dolarhyde, the tormented serial killer at the center of the thriller, he delivered a performance that remains one of the genre’s most haunting, influencing later depictions of cinematic psychopaths.

He followed that with another indelible turn as Frankenstein’s monster in the horror comedy The Monster Squad, a role director Fred Dekker later called “a highlight” of his career. Noonan’s ability to invest monstrous figures with vulnerability made him a go-to presence for filmmakers seeking more than a stock villain.

In RoboCop 2, Noonan played Cain, the messianic leader of the Nuke drug cult who is transformed into the hulking cyborg RoboCop 2. His gaunt frame and eerie calm gave the sequel its most memorable menace. He returned to blockbuster territory as the Ripper in Last Action Hero, squaring off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in a meta-action spectacle that has since gained a devoted following.

Noonan was also an accomplished writer and director. His intimate chamber piece What Happened Was…, adapted from his own play and co-starring Sillas, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and became a touchstone of American independent cinema. He continued to work steadily in films such as Heat, Eight Legged Freaks and Synecdoche, New York, as well as in television and theater, while mentoring younger artists.

His final film role came in Todd Haynes’s Wonderstruck, a fittingly delicate coda to a career defined by quiet intensity. Colleagues remember him as a “gentleman and scholar,” a fiercely intelligent performer who brought depth and danger to every frame.