‘Santa Barbara’ actor, Nicolas Coster, dies at age 89

Nicolas Coster, a veteran actor known for his work on the daytime dramas “Santa Barbara” and “Another World,” passed away on Monday, his daughter announced in a Facebook post.

He turned 89.

“It is with great sadness that I place this on my father’s book page,” Dinneen Coster wrote. “Nicolas Coster passed away tonight in a Florida hospital. Please remember him as a great artist. He was an actor’s actor! I will always be inspired by him and know how lucky I am to have such a great dad!! Rest in peace.”

In a statement to CNN, Coster’s agent Chrystal Ayers said he died of complications from a long battle with cancer.

An accomplished actor with over 100 film and television credits, Coster’s film, television and theater career spans decades. Among many other titles, Coster worked extensively on several long-running daytime soap operas.

Coster was best known for his role as Robert Delaney in NBC’s television series ‘Somerset’. later returned in 1989 for the 25th anniversary.

He also starred as Lionel Lockridge in the soap opera ‘Santa Barbara’, which followed a community of wealthy families in the affluent California city. Coster appeared in nearly 600 episodes between 1984 and 1993.

Throughout his career, Coster appeared in other notable soap operas such as “As the World Turns” as Eduardo Grimaldi, as gangster turned informant Anthony Makana in “One Life to Live” and kidnapper Steve Andrews in “All My Children.” His first role in a soap came in the 1960s when he played Professor Paul Britton in ‘The Secret Storm’.

The London native grew up in California and returned to England to study acting at the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Art, later studying acting under famed acting teacher and theater director Lee Strasberg in New York City, according to a biography.

Coster’s early 1960s acting career included roles in various television shows such as ‘Our Private World’ and ‘The Green Hornet’ after appearing in a number of uncredited feature films in the 1950s.

In 1976, he co-starred with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Markham in “All the President’s Men,” the iconic cinematic retelling of how “Washington Post” reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered crucial details related to the Watergate scandal that led to to former president Richard Nixon’s resignation.

Coster also played Colonel Huff in “MacArthur” alongside Gregory Peck, the 1977 World War II biopic of General Douglas MacArthur, and appeared in the 1981 journalistic drama “Reds” alongside Warren Beatty.

Between 1982 and 1988, Coster played David Warner, Blair Warner’s father, on the NBC sitcom “The Facts of Life.” His other credits include “Murder, She Wrote”, “3rd Rock From the Sun”, “Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman”, “Law & Order” and he starred as Mayor Jack Madison regularly on “The Bay” in the 2010s .

Coster’s more recent credits include playing Archbishop Norman in the 2020 horror film “The Last Exorcist” and as LLoyd Cutler in Ryan Murphy’s miniseries “American Crime Story: Impeachment” in 2021. His final credit in 2023 is for one episode of ” The Rookie: Feds” as Joseph Cicero.

Coster was also an author who published his memoir “Another Whole Afternoon” in 2021 and was a celebrated stage actor with several stints on and off Broadway shows.