86-year-old actor Peter White, of "Boys in the Band" and "All My Children," passes away

Peter White, who spent more than 40 years playing Linc Tyler on the ABC serial opera All My Children, as well as starring in both the stage version and the movie version of The Boys in the Band, has passed away. 86 years old.

According to Kathleen Noone, who played Ellen Shepherd Dalton on All My Children, White passed away on Wednesday at his Los Angeles home from melanoma. This information was provided to The Hollywood Reporter.

In the first two seasons of the ABC primetime soap opera The Colbys in 1985–86, White played Arthur Cates, Sable Colby's (Stephanie Beacham) attorney. He also made a cameo in the 1991–96 NBC drama Sisters as the late doctor father of the characters portrayed by Swoosie Kurtz, Sela Ward, Patricia Kalember, and Julianne Phillips.

After James Karen, White was the third actor to play Lincoln Tyler, the son of the strict Pine Valley matriarch Phoebe Tyler (Ruth Warrick), and he played the part from 1974 to 1980. White then reprised the role in 1981, 1984, 1986, 1995, and 2005.

In Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, which debuted off-Broadway at Theater Four in April 1968, White played Alan McCarthy. Though it's unknown if Alan was or is gay, the drama centers on a group of gay men attending their friend Harold's (Leonard Frey) birthday party in a Manhattan apartment.

The majority of LGBT characters in American theater had hitherto been hidden or vilified.

"We didn't know what we had on opening night," White reminisced in a 2008 interview. "It's a play, it's something new, it's different, and it's good," was all we could think. The crowd was exclusively gay, but the next day, things became insane! "We received a call telling us to arrive at the theater early since there was so much people there that it was impossible to get close to it. The term "gay play" was popular at the time, but in my opinion, it was more of a play with gay characters than a gay play.

White and his co-stars went along for the ride as Crowley developed and adapted his drama for the historic 1970 film, which was directed by William Friedkin and distributed by National General Pictures.

White began her career in soap operas, portraying Jerry Ames on CBS’ The Secret Storm in 1965–1966. She then made a cameo appearance on an episode of N.Y.P.D. in 1968. White was born in New York City on October 10, 1937.

While collaborating with Myrna Loy on a touring production of Barefoot in the Park, he received an offer to join the Boys in the Band.

"I felt like I didn't need this kind of risk because things were kind of moving for me and I was doing so well," he recounted. "When I spoke with Myrna, who later became my mentor, she advised me to take some risks in my life if I wanted to be an actor."

More than 1,000 performances of the play were planned.

In 1971, White made a comeback to the soap opera scene as Dr. Sanford Hiller on CBS's Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing. That same year, he also starred in the Robert Mulligan-directed movie The Pursuit of Happiness.

In 1975, he appeared on Broadway in the play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, which ran for a mere 16 performances.

Over the years, White had guest appearances on numerous TV series, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Mad About You, The X-Files, The West Wing, Cold Case, Cannon, Hill Street Blues, The Jeffersons, Dynasty, and Knots Landing.

Dave (1993), Mother (1996), Flubber (1997), Armageddon (1998), Thirteen Days (2000), and First Daughter (2004) were among the other films on his reel. He has been an acting coach for people getting ready for auditions in recent years.

Nobody mentioned that White was single and didn't have kids. The SoapHub website broke the initial news of his demise.