Allen Garfield, a character actor from New Jersey, has died from complications of the coronavirus disease, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which confirmed Garfield’s death with his sister.

Garfield, a Newark native, was 80.

Actress Ronee Blakley, who starred opposite Garfield in the 1975 Robert Altman movie “Nashville,” announced Garfield’s death on Facebook. Blakley said he died Tuesday from COVID-19.

The actor, born Allen Goorwitz — a name he sometimes used in Hollywood instead of his stage name — was a graduate of Weequahic High School.

Before pursuing an acting career, Garfield became a boxer, he told interviewer Skip E. Lowe in the ’80s, as a way of “keeping the gangs off me.” He also worked as a journalist for 10 years until he was 26, starting as a copy boy at The Star-Ledger in the ’50s before becoming a sportswriter and editor.

“I thought I was either gonna be the first boxer-journalist, like a Hemingway character, I’d be like the Jewish Hemingway, right?" he told Lowe. “Box and also write about boxing.”

RIP Allen Garfield, the great actor who played my husband in "Nashville", has died today of Covid; I hang my head in... Posted by Ronee Blakley on Tuesday, April 7, 2020

But Garfield first caught the acting bug when he was a teen. He idolized comedian Lenny Bruce.

Garfield later attended The Actors Studio in New York, where he was at first admitted as a writer and director, and studied under Lee Strasberg. He often played nervous and corrupt types in films, appearing in movies including Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 drama “The Conversation,” which was nominated for three Oscars, including best picture; “Cry Uncle," “Dick Tracy,” “The Stunt Man,” “The Candidate,” with Robert Redford, “The Stunt Man" and Roman Polanski’s “The Ninth Gate."

Garfield played studio boss Louis B. Mayer in the 1976 film “Gale and Lombard" and the fiery police chief in the 1987 movie “Beverly Hills Cop II” alongside Eddie Murphy. He portrayed the husband and manager of country singer Barbara Jean (Blakley) in “Nashville,” which was nominated for best picture.

“RIP Allen Garfield, the great actor who played my husband in ‘Nashville,’ has died today of Covid," said Blakley, 74, in a Facebook post. “I hang my head in tears; condolences to family and friends.”

Garfield has more than 100 film and TV credits to his name, starting in the late ’60s with “Orgy Girls ’69” — “there was no orgy in it,” Allen told Lowe — and ending in 2002, after he appeared in “The Majestic” with Jim Carrey.

“The Conversation,” Garfield told Lowe, was, of all of his films, “the one that I unequivocally respect the most that I’ve ever done. It said more about America and the eavesdropping menace in our society. It was, in my estimation, Francis Ford Coppola at the top of his game." The movie, which stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who uncovers a possible murder, was released shortly before the resignation of President Richard Nixon and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Garfield previously suffered two strokes, after which he went to live at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.

Have a tip? Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.

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