Shelly Desai, the Indian-born character actor perhaps best known for his recurring work on Men of a Certain Age and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, has died. He was 90.
Desai died Tuesday of an unknown cause in Los Angeles, a family spokesperson announced.
Desai portrayed Carlos, an employee at the party-supply store owned by Ray Romano’s character, on 14 episodes of the 2009-11 TNT drama Men of a Certain Age, also starring Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula.
He also played the landlord Hwang, who rents a hotel room to Charlie (Charlie Day) and Frank (Danny DeVito), on three episodes of FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia from 2005-16, and he lent his voice to 10 episodes of the Fox kids show Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? in 1994.
Born in Bombay on Dec. 3, 1935, Desai appeared in such off-Broadway productions as At the Hawk’s Well and Jungle of Cities and on Broadway in Gandhi, which opened and closed on the same night in 1970, and in A Talent for Murder in 1981.
He played a cabby on the first episode of ER in 1994 and on another installment and also showed up on TV in Ugly Betty, NYPD Blue, Friends, Star Trek: The Next Generation, St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, Hunter, The A-Team, Moonlighting, Thirtysomething, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Baskets and History of the World: Part II.
One of his first movie roles came in Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise (1974), and his big-screen résumé included work on Thelma & Louise (1991), Toys (1992), Clifford (1994), Escape From L.A. (1996), Barb Wire (1996), Midnight Clear (2006), Here Comes the Boom (2012) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015).
Survivors include his wife, Phyllis; stepdaughters April and Dawn; and grandchildren Sean, Sofia and Dylan.
