Father from "EIGHT IS ENOUGH" Dick Van Patten dead at 86

Dick Van Patten, the genial, round-faced comic actor who appeared on Broadway as a child, starred on TV in its infancy and then, in middle age, found lasting fame as the patriarch on TV’s “Eight is Enough,” has died.

Van Patten died Tuesday in Santa Monica, California, of complications from diabetes, according to his publicist, Daniel Bernstein. He was 86.

Born in New York, the veteran entertainer began his career as a model and child actor, making his Broadway debut in 1935 at the age of seven, billed as “Dickie Van Patten.” He would go on to appear in 27 other Broadway plays, including the comedy classic “Mister Roberts,”

In 1949, he began a seven-year run on one of TV’s earliest series, “Mama,” playing one of the sons of a Norwegian-American family in early 1900s San Francisco.

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