Richard Moll, ‘Night Court’ Star, Dead at 80

Richard Moll, a beloved character actor who starred in Night Court, has died. He was 80. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a spokesperson for Moll confirmed that he “died peacefully Thursday at his home in Big Bear Lake, California.” He is survived by two children. No cause of death has been given.

Born and raised in Pasadena, California in the 1940s, the 6 foot 8 inch Moll attended the University of California, Berkeley in the early ’60s. He majored in history and psychology, then went on to work as a deputy probation officer — as well as in a ladies’ hosiery store — after graduating. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that Moll first got bitten by the showbusiness bug. He starred in a number of films and TV shows — including Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley — before joining Night Court as bailiff Aristotle Nostradamus “Bull” Shannon in 1984. He would remain with the show for its full run, which ended in 1992. He was not involved with the sequel series that debuted earlier this year.

In a 1986 interview with the Courier-Post, Moll revealed exactly how Bull came to be. “It’s really all my fault,” he confessed, per Catchy Comedy. “I had just wound up filming a low-budget horror movie in which I played some sort of bald mutant, and I walked into an interview for the Night Court part. They said, ‘Richard, the shaved head looks good. Will you shave your head for this part?’ I said, ‘Are you kidding? I’ll shave my legs for the part.’” Later, in a 1988 interview with The Standard-Star, Moll quipped, “I like to grow my hair whenever I’m on hiatus because I don’t want to be typed as a stretched-out Yul Brynner all my life.”

During his conversation with the Courier-Post, Moll also discussed how important it was for him to inject some wit into his performance as Bull, so as to keep the towering character from seeming intimidating. “He’s got a menacing exterior that can scare anybody, but you can tell right away that he’s just a big, good-hearted guy,” Moll said. He added, “Some weeks, I just have a few lines and I try to deliver them well so they mesh with the storyline of that episode.” Finally, Moll shared, “And then there are the weeks when my character is the major part of the whole story. It varies throughout the year but, first and foremost, the six of us realize that we’re an ensemble. We have to work together; we have to be a family.”