Variety reports that the actor died in Santa Monica, Calif., after a long battle with an unspecified illness.
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Coe continued working in the Big Apple as an original member of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players, the predecessor to Saturday Night Live, although he was only credited as a cast member for the premiere episode in 1975.
Coe was the oldest member of the cast to join the popular weekend show until Leslie Jones was hired on at age 47 just past year.
Coe portrayed Dustin Hoffman’s advertisement agency boss in Robert Benton’s Oscar best picture Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and he was Claude Axhelm, one of the manipulating husbands, in The Stepford Wives (1975).
Coe was active in the Screen Actors’ Guild for over 20 years.
Most recently, the veteran character actor gave voice to Archer’s butler Woodhouse, as well as guested on Wilfred and Two and a Half Men.
Prior to his time on SNL, Coe was nominated for an Academy Award for co-directing the 1968 short film The Dove.
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His TV appearances include credits for Gilmore Girls, Smallville, The West Wing, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Supernatural, Grey’s Anatomy and more. Coe also fostered the template for SAG’s first low budget production contract. His Broadway theater career began in 1957 and included performing as M. Lindsey Woolsey opposite Angela Lansbury in the original cast of Jerry Herman’s “Mame” and as Owen O’Malley in “On The Twentieth Century“.
