Daniel von Bargen
American actor (1950-2015)
Daniel von Bargen (June 5, 1950 – March 1, 2015) was an American character actor of film, stage and television. He was known for his roles as Mr. Kruger on Seinfeld (1997–1998), Commandant Edwin Spangler on Malcolm in the Middle (2000–2002), and Chief Grady in Super Troopers (2001).
Early life
Von Bargen was born to Juanita J. (née Bustle) and Donald L. von Bargen, and was of German and English descent. He was born in Cincinnati, where he grew up for most of his childhood before moving with his family to Southern California. In 1968, von Bargen graduated from Reading High School. He graduated from Purdue University in Indiana.
Career
In 1974, von Bargen made his television debut in Feasting with Panthers, a play about Oscar Wilde's imprisonment at the Reading Gaol, on PBS's Great Performances anthology series.
Von Bargen's film credits included The Silence of the Lambs, London Betty, RoboCop 3, Basic Instinct, Broken Arrow, Truman, The Majestic, Philadelphia, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Snow Falling on Cedars, Thinner, A Civil Action, Disney's The Kid, Super Troopers and Universal Soldier: The Return.
Von Bargen played the maniacal sorcerer Nix in Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions and the Sheriff in The Postman.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Daniel von Bargen” as american actor (1950-2015). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actor (1950-2015). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1163293. VIAF identifies the subject as 53488357. The Library of Congress control number is n99835545. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 2015, 1997 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Daniel von Bargen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.