J. T. Walsh

Walsh was born in San Francisco, California. He had three siblings: Christopher, Patricia, and Mary. After graduating from the University of Rhode Island in 1967, Walsh worked briefly as a VISTA volunteer in Newport, Rhode Island organizing tenants for the United Tenant Organizations of Rhode Island (UTO) before resigning to pursue his acting career. Prior to becoming an actor, he also worked as a barman, an encyclopedia salesman, a junior high school teacher, a gymnasium equipment salesman, and a reporter. In 1974, he was discovered by a theater director and began working in off-Broadway shows, where he began using the initials "J. T." to avoid confusion with another stage actor named James Walsh. ==Career==

On stage, Walsh received critical acclaim for his performance as John Williamson in the 1984 U.S. premiere of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross in Chicago and subsequently on Broadway. ==Personal life and death==

Walsh died of a heart attack in the hospital in La Mesa, California, on February 27, 1998, at the age of 54, after feeling ill and collapsing at the Optimum Health Institute in Lemon Grove. According to author Marc Seifer, for whom Walsh had narrated a documentary a few weeks earlier, Walsh had experienced chest pains and had an EKG test done that resulted in a misdiagnosis. In his tribute to Walsh in Time Out New York, Andrew Johnston wrote: ==Filmography==

Film Television ==References==