It's been a bad week for actors: "Ken Howard Dead: '30 Rock' Actor, SAG-AFTRA President Dies at 71"
Of course, US Weekly would tout his more recent work such as 30 Rock. But his biggest claim to fame would be The White Shadow, a CBS drama from 1978-81, where he played a pro basketball player forced to retire because of an injury who becomes a coach at an inner-city high school. Interestingly enough, People magazine says, the network didn't want the show to be a drama; they wanted a Welcome Back, Kotter clone:
"We said, 'Listen, we are going to be funny, but we want to deal with all these various issues,' " he explained. "[The Network said,] 'Please stay away from sex, drugs, crime.' And we said, 'Why do you think we are doing the show?! That's all the stuff that is out there – the demons, that these kids are dealing with.' "
Fortunately, Howard prevailed, and the show went on to be a hit. It also went on to become a piece of TV trivia, in that one of the supporting cast members -- Byron Stewart as Warren Coolidge -- went on to play the same character on St. Elsewhere.
As for Ken Howard, he's won a Tony Award and an Emmy Award and taught acting at Harvard University ... and became president of SAG-AFTRA, to boot.
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I watched The White Shadow every week and one of my favorite movies is 1776 where he played (a very tall) Thomas Jefferson.