Nicolas Coster, an actor from “Another World,” “Santa Barbara,” and “All My Children,” has died at the age of 89.
Nicholas Coster, a soap opera mainstay who appeared in All the President’s Men, Reds, Stir Crazy, Another World, Santa Barbara, and All My Children, has died.
In addition to appearing on Broadway with Laurence Olivier and Liz Taylor, he also appeared in “All the President’s Men,” “Reds,” and “The Facts of Life.”
Coster, 89, died unexpectedly in a Florida hospital on Monday, according to a Facebook post by his daughter Dinneen Coster.
“Please remember him as a fantastic artist,” she wrote. “He was a fantastic actor! He has always been an inspiration to me, and I am blessed to have him as a parent.”
Coster is a well-known character actor who usually plays unpleasant characters. On The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, he played Chief of Detectives J.E. Carson before making a brief cameo as Blair Warner’s billionaire father on The Facts of Life, an episode of another 1980s NBC sitcom.
He was a regular on Broadway, and he made his Broadway debut in 1961 as Lawrence Olivier’s understudy in Becket, playing Henry II. Twenty years later, he co-starred in Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes with Elizabeth Taylor.
Coster portrayed Markham, a Watergate defense attorney, in Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 novel All the President’s Men. Along with these appearances, he played a dentist named Paul Trullinger in Sidney Poitier’s Stir Crazy (1980), Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981), and Joseph Sargent’s MacArthur (1977).
On NBC’s Santa Barbara from 1984 to 1988, Coster portrayed the self-destructive Lionel Lockridge, husband to Louise Sorel’s Augusta Lockridge. He left the show in 1988 after becoming dissatisfied with a scenario in which his character pretended to die in order to get insurance money. He returned in 1990, though, and stayed until the show was discontinued in January 1993.
Furthermore, in NBC’s Somerset/Another World from 1970 to 1979, 1980, and 1989, Coster portrayed Robert Delaney, the CEO of Delaney Brands who eventually became an architect. From 1988 through 1989, he played the crazed kidnapper Steve Andrews on ABC’s All My Children. He previously referred to Andrews as “Susan Lucci’s terrorist lover.”
He was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 1986, 1988, 1991, and 1992 for his work as Lionel. He eventually won the prize in 2017 for his role as Mayor Jack Madison in Amazon’s digital serial opera The Bay.
His serial work dates back to the 1960s, with appearances on ABC’s One Life to Live, as well as CBS’s Young Doctor Malone, The Secret Storm, As the World Turns, and its primetime offshoot, Our Private World.
Coster was ranked 44th on We Love Soaps’ list of the 50 Greatest Soap Actors of All Time in 2010. According to one panelist, it was the unusual soap that wasn’t captivated by or with Nicolas Coster, who was also hailed as “smart, charming, and very funny.” He also stated that “he is always spot on as the grifter/con man/bad boy who is so cool, ice wouldn’t melt in his mouth.”
Nicolas Dwynn Coster was born in London on December 3, 1933. His mother created storefront windows, and his father wrote film and theater reviews. When Little Foxes came to London, he and Taylor, who attended the same prep school (Byron House), returned to their old playground.
Coster returned to the United Kingdom at the age of 16 after residing in Canada and Los Angeles, where he attended Canoga Park High School. He studied acting there and graduated in 1951.
Two years later, after performing in films such as Titanic, The Desert Rats, and Sea of Lost Ships, he relocated to the United States to study with Lee Strasberg in New York and to perform at the Arena Stage in Washington and the Guthrie Theater (where he was a founding member).
Coster discussed working with the renowned Olivier on Becket in a 2006 interview with the Orange County Register. Larry was very athletic, even at the age of 54, he remembered. “During the first act, he severely twisted his knee.” From the wings, I watched as Olivier limped off stage and whispered, “Not tonight, Nicolas.”
Coster joined Jada Rowland on the set of The Secret Storm in 1964 after being hired for the film. They “played the first professor and student to get naughty together” on daytime television, he claimed. Prior to our affair and marriage, the United States Senate used us as an example of immorality on daytime television.
In the 1970s, he co-starred in Twigs on Broadway with Sada Thompson, who went on to win a Tony Award, and he also appeared in Seesaw and Otherwise Engaged with Michele Lee and Tom Courtenay.
Coster has been in a variety of TV episodes and films, including The Green Hornet, Charlie’s Angels, One Day at a Time, L.A. Law, Who’s the Boss?, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Cold Case.
Despite being involved in a near-fatal car accident in November 1987 that placed him in a coma and temporarily caused him to lose his memory, he was able to continue teaching acting at the University of Georgia.
As an avid diver, Coster established the Challenges Foundation in 1998 to give disadvantaged and impoverished children the opportunity to have fun in the ocean. He also started a sailing program for returning American veterans. In March 2021, he released his book, Another Whole Afternoon.
His children Candice Jr. and Dinneen, born from his previous marriage to dancer-actress Candace Hilligoss, are among his survivors. In 1960, he married the Carnival of Souls actress, and they were married until their divorce in 1981. Ian, his son, died in 2016.
