Doug Sheehan, soap opera actor and ’90s TV dad, recently passed away in Big Horn, Wyoming. The actor was 75 years old, and his death was announced by the Kane Funeral Home.
Sheehan appeared as a dad on both the TV shows Clueless and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. He started his career in 1978, with a bit part on the show Charlie’s Angels. His breakthrough role came as lawyer Joe Kelly on General Hospital, a role he held from 1970 until 1982.
He would move from there to another soap: Knots Landing, a spinoff of the then-monster hit Dallas. He played reporter Ben Gibson for 115 shows before his character was written off. Through the ’90s he appeared in a number of TV shows and movies, including 10, Victor/Victoria, and Cops N Roberts. He also appeared in Columbo, What I Like About You, MacGyver, and Cheers.
He appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1989, and talked about how he had to break down walls to get work because Hollywood was run by casting directors that “never watch what you’re on. … They don’t know if I can do full-hour comedy yet, so I have to break through.”
Notably, he played Cher Horowitz’s father on the UPN show Clueless, based on the movie of the same name. He took over the role from actor Michael Lerner and played the character Mel Horowitz for the show’s last two seasons.
His final roles came in 2003, he appeared in What I Like About You and Sabrina The Teenage Witch, where he played Sabrina’s father Edward Gibson. While we don’t know his exact cause of death, we do know that he “passed away peacefully at his home” with his “loving wife at his side.”