John Ashton, ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Actor, Dies At 76

NEW YORK — John Ashton, the veteran character actor who famously played the gruff but endearing police investigator John Taggart in the ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ movie, died. He was 76.

John passed away on Thursday in Fort Collins, Colorado, according to a statement released on Sunday by Ashton’s manager, Alan Somers. No cause of death was immediately determined.

John Ashton, ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Actor, Dies At 76

In a career spanning more than 50 years, John was a familiar face across TV shows and films, including “Midnight Run,” “Little Big League,” and “Go Baby Gone.”

But in the “Beverly Hills Cop” movie, John was an integral part of an unforgettable triumvirate. Though Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley, a Detroit detective investigating a crime in Los Angeles, was the main character, the two local detectives — Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Ashton’s Taggart — were Axel’s sometimes reluctant, sometimes eager accomplices.

Of the three, Taggart — “Sarge” to Billy — was the more fearful, by-the-book detective. But he was constantly lured into Axel’s ideas. Ashton co-starred in all four films, beginning with the 1984 original and continuing through the Netflix reboot, “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” which debuted earlier this year.

Ashton played a more unscrupulous character in Martin Brest’s 1988 buddy comedy “Midnight Run.” In “The Duke,” he played a rival bounty hunter who is simultaneously hunting Charles Grodin’s wanted accountant while he is in the hands of Robert De Niro’s Jack Walsh.

John Ashton, ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Actor, Dies At 76

In a July interview with Collider, John discussed auditioning with De Niro.

“Bobby started handing me these matches, and I tried to grab the matches, and he dropped them on the floor and stared at me,” Ashton recalled.” “I looked at the matches, then looked up and said, ‘F—- you,’ to which he replied, ‘F—- you, too.’ I said, ‘Go —- yourself.’ I know every other actor picked those up and delivered them to him, and as soon as I left, he said, ‘I want him,’ because he needed someone to stand up to him.”

John is survived by his wife of 24 years, Robin Hoye, his two daughters, three stepchildren, a grandson, two sisters, and a brother.

SOURCE | AP