Joe Flaherty, Star of Happy Gilmore and Back to the Future Part II, Dead at 82

Flaherty also starred on SCTV and Freaks and Geeks.

By Russ Burlingame

Joe Flaherty, a comedian and actor with a decades-long career that included minor roles in movies like Back to the Future Part II and Happy Gilmore, has died. He was 82 years old. Flaherty started his career at Chicago's Second City in the 1970s, and went on to appear on SCTV from 1976 until 1984, during which time he also served as a writer on the show. By the end of the 1970s, Flaherty was starting to appear in movies like 1941 and Used Cars. He would continue to work on the big and small screen consistently until 2012.

In 2014, Flaherty made his final screen appearance in a short film called Nightlife. Before that, he had spent the final years of his career largely working in television, appearing on shows like Family Guy, American Dad!, and Call Me Fitz.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1941, Flaherty was the oldest of seven children. He served in the U.S. Air Force before returning home and starting his career in comedy. 

During the course of his long career, he often played familiar (but minor) characters in beloved movies. He showed up in Back to the Future Part II as the Western Union representative who brought Marty the telegram from 1885, and later appeared in Happy Gilmore, where he played a loud heckler ("Jackass!"). 

During his time with SCTV, Flaherty started to upgrade the kinds of other projects he would take, appearing in movies like Heavy Metal and Stripes. He would also appear on TV series, TV movies, and feature films with his SCTV and Second City comrades like Martin Short and John Candy. He also worked with other comedy icons like Al Franken (in Stuart Saves His Family) and Dave Foley (in The Wrong Guy).

One of his most iconic roles was as Harold Weir, the family patriarch on Freaks and Geeks. The cult-favorite series made stars of most of its young cast, and helped audiences fall in love with Flaherty again.

Flaherty is survived by his children Gabriel and Gudrun, the latter of whom is also an actress and writer.  Our condolences go out to Mr. Flaherty's family, friends, collaborators and fans.

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