Ken Kercheval

Kenneth Marine Kercheval (July 15, 1935 – April 21, 2019) was an American actor, best known for his role as Cliff Barnes on the television series Dallas and its 2012 revival.

A lifelong smoker, Kercheval was a lung cancer survivor after having had part of his lung removed in 1994. Kercheval was married and divorced three times and had five children. As of 2012, he had six grandchildren. Kercheval died of pneumonia on April 21, 2019, at the age of 83.

Kercheval was born on July 15, 1935, in Wolcottville, Indiana, to Marine "Doc" Kercheval (1899-1967), a local physician, and the former Christine Reiber (1903-1996), a registered nurse. He was raised in Clinton, Indiana. As a teenager, Kercheval often was with his dad in the operating room and once put two stitches in his sister Kate when she had an appendectomy. Kercheval attended Indiana University, not to become a doctor, but to major in music and drama. He later studied at the University of the Pacific, and starting in 1956, at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City under Sanford Meisner.