Richard Frank (actor)
American actor (1953-1995)

Richard Edward Frank (January 4, 1953 – August 27, 1995) was an American actor. He was perhaps best known as Father Vogler in the 1984 movie Amadeus. Frank had numerous guest appearances in television shows, with a regular role in the sitcom Anything but Love.
Biography
Born in Boston, Frank was a graduate of Juilliard's acting school. In addition, Frank appeared in numerous theater productions, including Hang on to Me at the Guthrie Theater, directed by Peter Sellars, as well as many productions in Los Angeles, mostly at the Taper. He created the Struggling Actor's Coloring Book and dozens of paintings, which are now in private collections. He was noted by colleagues for his intelligence and endless wit.
Frank played infamous lawyer and informal powerbroker Roy Cohn in the first performance of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America. Cohn also died from AIDS-related complications.
By 1993, Frank had already gone public with his affliction with AIDS. In the wake of his public disclosure, Frank was asked to guest-star in the fourth season Life Goes On episode "Bedfellows".
The public source identifies “Richard Frank (actor)” as american actor (1953-1995). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Richard, Frank and actor.
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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 Dec 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7325768. VIAF identifies the subject as 17691017. The Library of Congress control number is n87115327. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1995, 1984 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richard Frank (actor)” 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.