Ray Walston had quite a career. Over a near-50-year span, he played a favorite TV martian — that'd be Uncle Martin in the 1960s science fiction comedy series, "My Favorite Martian" — a no-nonsense history teacher in the teen film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," and yes, Uncle Harry Summers in "Silver Spoons." Walston turned up in three episodes of the NBC sitcom to play the uncle of Edward Stratton III's personal assistant-turned-wife, Kate Summers (Erin Gray), per IMDb. He even had an episode dedicated to his quirky character, titled "The Trouble With Harry."
Walston was born in 1914 and began acting in 1939, per TV Guide. By 1956, he won a Tony Award for his role as Satan in "Damn Yankees." After moving to TV, Walston later tried to distance himself from his "My Favorite Martian" role, but in 1999, he embraced it by taking a small part in the movie remake. Walston famously played coy about his age. He was nearly 80 when he was nominated for his first Emmy, but he once told the Post-Gazette that he followed character actor Thomas Mitchell's mantra of "the older you get, the less work you get" in Hollywood — so he was never straight about his age in interviews.
While he worked steadily until the year of his death, Walston was diagnosed with lupus six years prior, per the Lupus Trust website. On January 1, 2001, he died at home at age 86 of natural causes, according to Variety.
