Jon Polito.

Veteran character actor Jon Polito has died at the age of 65, his friend director John McNaughton announced on Friday. Over the course of 35 years in the business, Polito, by McNaughton’s estimation, acted in more than 100 movies, as well as dozens of TV shows and Broadway productions. He was a particular favorite of the Coen Brothers, playing a gangster in Miller’s Crossing, a studio flunky in Barton Fink, and a private investigator in The Big Lebowski. Polito also played Det. Steve Crosetti on Homicide: Life on the Street before leaving the show in “a major artistic parting of the ways.” He later said that the way Crosetti was written out of the series made him “furious.” More recently, he appeared in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Bunheads, and Modern Family. Polito is survived by his longtime partner, actor Darryl Armbruster.