David Margulies had just a tiny role in “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” as a doctor, but most fans know him from his earlier work. Marguiles played the mayor of New York City in the “Ghostbusters” franchise, although his acting career began long before those movies ever made their way to the big screen. Margulies got his start on the stage, starring in off-Broadway productions in the 1960s when he was still in his 20s. In 1973 he finally landed on Broadway in a production of “The Iceman Cometh,” and not long after that, he started making regular appearances in movies and TV shows.
Though Margulies’s best-known roles are in comedies, he was equally adept at tackling dramas. He made a number of guest appearances in shows like “The Sopranos,” “Law & Order,” and “Blue Bloods.” He may have been more focused on movies and TV in his later years, but Marguiles never gave up his love of the theater and kept acting on stage throughout his entire life. He even wrote his own shows, and his play “Time Stands Still” debuted in 2009.
Marguiles died in 2016 at the age of 78. Fans took to Reddit to mourn his death, and Margulies’s grandson jumped into a thread to answer questions and memorialize his grandfather. He wrote, “He loved doing what he did and did it right up until he physically couldn’t anymore.”
