He was a regular on TV shows ‘Matlock’ and ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ before joining University of Nevada theatre department and in his later career he had roles in religiously themed dramas including the ‘Left Behind’ movie series.

The film and television actor Clarence GilyardJr – who was a popular supporting actor roles in the movies Top Gun and Die Hard and for starring in the TV show Walker, Texas Ranger – has died at the age of 66, according to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where he had been working as an associate professor at the College of Fine Arts. Gilyard reportedly had long been ill, but additional details surrounding his death were not immediately available made public.

He was also the computer-smart terrorist Theo in the 1988 Bruce Willis flick Die Hard, a role he reprised in a 2021 Super Bowl commercial. Mr. Gilyard had a prolific career as an actor, starting in the 1980s with appearances in “Diff’rent Strokes,” “The Facts of Life” and other TV sitcoms.

He also appeared in two of the biggest action films of the decade: “Top Gun” (1986), in which he played Sundown, a radar intercept officer, and “Die Hard” (1988). Starting in the late 1980s, he had featured roles in the TV legal drama “Matlock,” playing a private investigator working for Andy Griffith’s canny defense lawyer, and “Walker, Texas Ranger,” as a young ranger working with veteran lawman Chuck Norris. His other credits include “The Karate Kid: Part II,” a stage production of “Driving Miss Daisy”.

Clarence Alfred Gilyard Jr. was born in Moses Lake, Washington., on Dec. 24, 1955, and grew up on military bases for his father’s Air Force career. He graduated from high school in Rialto, Calif., and attended the Air Force Academy before transferring to Sterling College, an evangelical Christian college in Kansas, where he played wide receiver for the football team.

According to UNLV, Gilyard ventured into acting after studying Theatre Arts at California State University. He landed his first role on the TV show “Diff’rent Strokes” in 1981.

Gilyard was the father of six children. He was divorced from Catherine Dutko, with whom he had two children, ended in divorce. In 2001, he married Elena Castillo, with whom he had three children.