Philip Baker Hall
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Philip Baker Hall (September 10, 1931, Toledo, Ohio - June 12, 2022) was an American character actor with a career spanning more than five decades in film and television. He initially trained to be a teacher before pursuing acting, eventually becoming one of the most distinctive supporting presences in American cinema.
In Ghostbusters II (1989), Hall portrayed the Police Commissioner, the head of the New York City Police Department who interacts with the Ghostbusters during the crisis surrounding Vigo the Carpathian. The character's scene appears in Chapter 21 (Tenth Level of Hell). The Police Commissioner in Ghostbusters II is a distinct character from the unnamed Police Commissioner who appeared in the original Ghostbusters (1984).
Hall's most celebrated work came through his collaborations with director Paul Thomas Anderson, whom he met on the set of a PBS production in the early 1990s when Anderson was a production assistant. Hall starred in Anderson's short film Cigarettes and Coffee (1993), which was later developed into the feature Hard Eight (1996), earning Hall an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead. He appeared in supporting roles in Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999), and was nominated twice for Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture. His extensive television work included recurring and guest appearances on MAS*H, Cheers, Miami Vice, Falcon Crest, L.A. Law, The West Wing, Modern Family, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, among more than 200 television appearances across his career.