Ronald Gabriel “Ron” Palillo (April 2, 1949 – August 14, 2012) was an American television and film actor.
Palillo was best known for his role as high school student Arnold Dingfelder Horshack on the ABC sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, which aired from 1975 to 1979.
Born in Cheshire, Connecticut and of Italian descent, Palillo
graduated from the University of Connecticut at Storrs, where he returned to teach during the late 1990s.
After Welcome Back, Kotter, Palillo appeared in supporting roles in various television series and performed the voice in various animated series such as Laverne & Shirley in the Army, Darkwing Duck, and Rubik, the Amazing Cube where he played the lead character. In 1996, Palillo played himself in several episodes of the television sitcom Ellen, where he became the love interest of Ellen’s friend Audrey. He also played a small part in the slasher film Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986). Recently, Ron also appeared as the lead in The Curse of Micah Rood.
Palillo returned to New York in 1991, and played such roles as Mozart in Amadeus and regionally as George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Arthur in Camelot and Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls. He appeared on Broadway in 2008 in Broadway Backwards 4, a charity event for people with AIDS. Among his other New York City credits were a one-person show in 2000 where he portrayed Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in The Diary of Adolf Eichmann at off-Broadway’s Jewish Theater.
As a director, Ron directed successful productions of the musical Three Guys Naked From The Waist Down in Los Angeles, A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline and a new edition of Phantom Of The Opera at the Cuillo Center for the Arts, in West Palm Beach, Florida. In 2007, he introduced a new clothing line specializing in limited-edition t-shirts produced by Rotter and Friends. Palillo was also an artist, having provided the art for two children’s books: The Red Wings of Christmas and A Gift for the Contessa.
In 2005, his first full-length play, The Lost Boy, the true story of Peter Pan author J. M. Barrie, premiered at the Helen Hayes Theatre in Nyack, New York, and later played at the Queens Theatre in the Park, in Queens, New York.
Palillo was a teacher at G-Star School Of The Arts for Motion Pictures and Broadcasting in Palm Springs, Florida.
Palillo and his partner of 41 years, Joseph Gramm, lived in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. On August 14, 2012, Palillo suffered a heart attack at his home and was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
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