Tracey Ross and Ben Masters at NBC’s ‘Passions’ seventh Season Kick-Off Celebration Albert L. Ortega/startraksphoto.com
Former Passions actor Ben Masters has died. He was 75.
The cleaning soap star handed away amid a battle with COVID-19 on Wednesday, January 11, on the Eisenhower Medical Heart in Palm Springs, California, per Deadline. The outlet additionally reported he had an ongoing battle with dementia for a number of years.
Masters was most well-known for his function on the NBC daytime sequence, the place he portrayed the character Julian Crane for eight years. He joined the cleaning soap opera when it premiered in 1999. His character was the inheritor of the rich Crane household and had villainous arcs all through his tenure.
The actor acquired reward for his function on the present. He acquired three best-supporting actor nominations from Cleaning soap Opera Digest in 2001, 2003 and 2005.
The Spy Sport actor stayed on Passions till 2008, when the sequence got here to an finish and was canceled by NBC after being on the air for almost a decade. The actor didn’t take one other on-screen function after Passions, which additionally starred Lindsay Hartley, McKenzie Westmore, Galen Gering and Juliet Mills, wrapped.
The Oregon native obtained his begin in theater after incomes a level on the College of Oregon. He later moved to New York Metropolis to carry out in an array of on- and off-Broadway productions. His credit embody Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, The Cherry Orchard — alongside Meryl Streep — and The Boys within the Band.
Within the 70s and 80s, he began his tv and movie profession. Masters appeared in a number of motion pictures, together with Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz, Mandingo, Dream Lover and extra. He additionally had visitor roles in TV sequence like Kojak, Touched by an Angel, Homicide She Wrote, Walker: Texas Ranger and extra.
Masters is survived by his sister Cheryl Lerner and two nieces Hannah and Clea Lerner. There won’t be a memorial service or funeral per the late actor’s request, based on Deadline.
