Peter White Dies: ‘All My Children’ Actor Was 86

Peter White, an alum of TV soaps All My Children and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, has died at 86.

All My Children costar Kathleen Noone told The Hollywood Reporter that White died of melanoma at home in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

White, born in New York City in 1937 and trained at Yale School of Drama, got his start playing Jerry Ames on the CBS soap The Secret Storm from 1965 to 1966.

In 1968, he starred in the original, off-Broadway production of the groundbreaking Mart Crowley play The Boys in the Band — which ran for more than 1,000 performances — and reprised his part in the 1970 film adaptation, directed by William Friedkin. (The play begat a Broadway revival in 2018 and a Netflix film with the revival cast.)

On CBS’ Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, White played Dr. Sanford Hiller for more than 250 episodes in 1971.

And on ABC’s All My Children, White played Lincoln Tyler, son of Ruth Warrick’s Phoebe Tyler, off and on for four decades, filling the role from 1974 to 1980 and making reprise appearances in 1981, 1984, 1986, 1995, and 2005.

ABC/Courtesy: Everett Collection

“When [costar] Eileen [Herlie] came on and we all realized we were going to have our storylines together… forgive me for saying this, but that’s when soaps — [including] All My Children — were really good,” White told Soap Opera Digest in 2008. “Eileen just sort of fit in. Eileen, Francesca [James], and I, we connected royally. I remember talking to [show creator] Agnes Nixon, and she said, ‘I have to write a storyline about you guys because you all get along so well!’ That was sort of it; we just became instant family and have been ever since, which is great.”

As for his primetime roles, White played Arthur Cates on ABC’s The Colbys from 1985 to 1986 and Dr. Thomas Reed on NBC’s Sisters from 1991 to 1996, appearing in more than a dozen episodes of each.

White’s TV résumé also includes guest-starring parts on The X-Files, The West Wing, NYPD Blue, and Cold Case. On the big screen, he appeared in Dave, Armageddon, Thirteen Days, and First Daughter.