Pat Finn, a prolific TV character actor and comedian best known for his recurring role as friendly neighbor Bill Norwood on ABC\u2019s The Middle, died Monday, December 22, at his Los Angeles home following a three-year battle with cancer. He was 60.<\/p>\n
His death was announced by his family and confirmed to Deadline by his manager Andrea Pett-Joseph, who called Finn \u201cthe kindest , most joyful person in any room\u201d and said the actor passed while surrounded by family and friends.<\/p>\n
More from Deadline<\/p>\n
Finn was diagnosed in 2022 with bladder cancer, which went into remission but later returned and metastasized. In the months prior to the actor\u2019s death, Finn\u2019s friends launched a GoFundMe page <\/a>on behalf of the family to help defray medical costs. To date the page has raised more than $118,000 in donations.<\/p>\n Born in Evanston, Illinois, on July 31, 1965, Finn joined Chicago\u2019s Second City and iO comedy troupes after graduating from\u00a0Marquette University\u00a0(where he became friends with future Saturday Night Live star Chris Farley) in 1987. His TV breakthrough came in the mid-1990s, when he landed recurring roles on The George Wendt Show and Murphy Brown. In 1998 he played the party-throwing character Joe Mayo in the memorable \u201cThe Reverse Peephole\u201d episode of Seinfeld.<\/p>\n Other TV roles included appearances on That \u201970s Show, The King of Queens, two episodes of Friends (he played Dr. Roger), and several episodes of Third Rock From The Sun. He played the character Jim Frost on eight episodes in 2001 and 2002 of the comedy-drama Ed, and made episodic appearances on Yes, Dear, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Bernie Mac Show, Wizards of Waverly Place, 2 Broke Girls and The Goldbergs, among others.<\/p>\n From 2011 to 2018 Finn played nice-guy Bill Norwood on 23 episodes of The Middle, neighbor to the sitcom\u2019s main characters the Hecks and good buddy of Neil Flynn\u2019s Mike Heck. In 2012 and 2013, he played Bob Forman on 18 episodes of the Nickelodeon sitcom Marvin Marvin.<\/p>\n On the big screen, Finn appeared in the 2000 comedy Dude, Where\u2019s My Car,\u00a0I\u00a0Love You, Beth Cooper, and It\u2019s Complicated starring Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and\u00a0Alec Baldwin.<\/p>\n Finn is survived by wife Donna, and their children, Cassidy, Caitlin and Ryan, his parents and other family.<\/p>\n In a post on X, Finn\u2019s friends and fellow comedians Brian Stack and Jeff Dye shared tributes. \u201cOne of the best dudes I knew with a PERFECT sense of humor,\u201d wrote Dye.<\/p>\n Best of Deadline<\/p>\n Sign up for Deadline’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pat Finn, a prolific TV character actor and comedian best known for his recurring role as friendly neighbor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[180668,180667,88,180666,180669,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-368031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-andrea-pett-joseph","9":"tag-bill-norwood","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-pat-finn","12":"tag-recurring-role","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}