Tom McDermott, who caught the acting bug as a student in Chicago and never shook it during a 64-year career on and off Broadway, on television and in the movies, has died in Manhattan of prostate cancer. He was 83.
He appeared on Broadway with Katharine Cornell and Judith Anderson in Chekhov's "Three Sisters," with Melvyn Douglas in "The Best Man," with Nicol Williamson in "Macbeth," and, more recently, as the harried secretary of state in the 1989 production of Larry Gelbart's "Mastergate."In one of his numerous Off-Broadway parts, he portrayed Captain Vere in the first stage adaptation of "Billy Budd." And in one of the first of many TVroles beginning in the 1950s, he appeared on the seminal sci-fi series "Captain Video" as Permes Lykos, an alien regarded as a precursor of Mr. Spock on the later "Star Trek" series.