It was a shame to hear he passed away yesterday. I saw the news via Twitter first and it got me to thinking about what he’d been doing lately. He won an Emmy for playing a parent in HBO’s Girls! Pretty amazing. Standing out in a show focused on four people being shitty friends to each other is a big feat; OK, that’s what I’ve been told Girls is about, I’ve never watched it and have no opinion.
As for Peter, he is immortalized in two roles with my fellow Gen Xers. The first is Henry from Bosom Buddies, a short-lived SitCom on ABC in the early Eighties. It’s more remembered as Tom Hanks’ first starring vehicle, yet they were co-stars. The premise of two grown men disguising themselves as women for one purpose or another is as old as theater in Ancient Greece but Peter and Tom did a great job pulling it off.
Then Peter got another great gig as the vapid, highly annoying Michael on Newhart. He was the perfect companion to Julia Duffy’s vain, lazy and spoiled Stephanie. How the character bugged Dick (aka Bob Newhart) with his preppie chatter.
Beyond those things, I mostly saw him around in bit parts. He was the voice of some blind optimist on Duckman, he was the host of a variety show in That Thing You Do! and the live-action actor for Mr. Bill.
Thanks for everything Peter! You will forever be Henry/Hildegarde, the creative young writer trying to make it in NYC with his best friend Kip/Buffy.