Phillip Baker 1931-2022

Philip Baker Hall, the Library Cop Lt. Bookman on ‘Seinfeld,’ Dies at 90.

Philip Baker Hall, the journeyman character actor who was a favorite of director Paul Thomas Anderson but surely is best remembered for bringing library investigator Lt. Bookman to a 1991 episode of Seinfeld, has died. He was 90.

Hall died Sunday night at his home in Glendale.

With his hangdog face and world-weary eyes, Hall looked as if he had seen it all and was using that knowledge to go forward. The everyman actor racked up more than 100 television appearances during his five-decade career, and one of his more endearing characters of late was Walt Kleezak, the cantankerous neighbor who befriends the young Luke Dunphy (Nolan Gould) on Modern Family.


Hall portrayed Richard Nixon in the acclaimed one-man play Secret Honor, then reprised the part of the disgraced president for director Robert Altman in a 1984 feature version. He also played 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt in Michael Mann’s The Insider (1999) and had the unique distinction of appearing in two films about a notorious 1960s serial killer — The Zodiac (2005) and Zodiac (2007).