R.I.P.

Soap Opera Star and ‘Risky Business’ Dad Nicholas Pryor Dies at 89

Nicholas Pryor died at home in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Monday.

Actor Nicholas Pryor, best known for his roles in Risky Business and Beverly Hills, 90210, as well as several soap operas, has died at 89. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Pryor’s wife, Christine Belford, confirmed his passing at home Monday in Wilmington, North Carolina. He died of cancer. “Nicholas Pryor was enormously grateful to have been, for nearly 70 years, a working actor,” a handwritten note to the publication reads. Throughout his decades-long career, Pryor racked up more than 170 credits in various movies and TV shows. In the 1983 Tom Cruise-led comedy Risky Business, Pryor played Cruise’s father. In 26 episodes of Aaron Spelling’s teen soap set in Beverly Hills, he took on another dad role, as father to college student Clare Arnold (Kathleen Robertson). Soap fans might remember him for his stint on Another World in 1964 or his close to 350 episodes on Port Charles in the late 1990s and early aughts. His most recent credit was as a morgue doctor in 2021’s Halloween installment, Halloween Kills. “He was one of the nicest people I have ever met and he will be missed,” Susan Tolar Walters, Pryor’s agent, told Variety.