David Schramm dies at 73; played airline rival Roy Biggins on ‘Wings’

David Schramm, best known as playing airline rival Roy Biggins on the NBC comedy “Wings,” has died at 73, The Acting Company’s Margot Harley announced Sunday. No cause of death was specified.

“We mourn his loss and will miss him,” Harley said in a statement.

The Kentucky native was attended New York’s Julliard School, a member of the first graduating class of drama students (that included Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone and David Ogden Stiers).

Schramm’s acting career spanned 40 years in theater, film and television. From 1990-97, he portrayed the portly, blustery Biggins on “Wings,” whose airline shared a terminal on Massachusetts’ Nantucket Island with Sandpiper Air, owned by brothers Joe and Brian Hackett (played by Tim Daly and Steven Weber). Schramm appeared in all 172 episodes of the hit comedy.

Weber called Schramm “quite simply a fantastic actor” on Twitter Sunday.

“His timing was never less than perfect, his professionalism was always on display,” Weber wrote. “He was kind. It was an honor and a pleasure to have been able to work with him.”

The stage veteran was a founding member of the Acting Company who made his first appearance on Broadway in 1973 in Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” and his last in 2009 in “Finian’s Rainbow.”

Additional credits include roles the TV dramas “Jake and the Fatman,” “The Equalizer,” “Miami Vice” and “Spenser: For Hire.” He starred as Robert McNamara in the 1983 TV series “Kennedy.”

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