Richard Libertini (1933-2016) was a character actor of stage, TV, and film. In 1989, while appearing off-Broadway in Love's Labor's Lost, he played the villainous Sock Snatcher, apprehended by Blue Bird, in Sesame Street Episode 2582.
A versatile dialectician and veteran of Chicago's The Second City, Libertini co-wrote and starred in the off-Broadway revue Stewed Prunes in 1960. He went on to originate the role of Father Drobny in the Woody Allen play Don't Drink the Water, reprising the part for film. Additional Broadway credits include Sly Fox (with Richard Kind), Conversations with My Father, and Paul Sills' Story Theatre (with Richard Schaal).
Libertini's other films include the Robert Altman Popeye (as Geezil), Fletch and Fletch Lives (as Fletch's boss Frank Walker), The In-Laws (with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, as dictator General Garcia), The Out of Towners (with Jack Lemmon), The Bonfire of the Vanities, Nell (with Jodie Foster), Lethal Weapon 4, Unfaithfully Yours (with Dudley Moore), and Dolphin Tale.
On TV, Libertini was a regular on the short-lived sitcoms Family Man (as the lead, with Mimi Kennedy), Pacific Station, and The Fanelli Boys (as Father Angelo, with Christopher Meloni) and appeared on Barney Miller (a repeat arrestee), Soap (as the Godfather), The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Jeffersons, Mork & Mindy, the 1980s The Twilight Zone, Murder, She Wrote, Law & Order, Murphy Brown, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Columbo, and Supernatural. As a voice actor, he was heard in DuckTales: The Movie (Dijon), Animaniacs (Wally Llama), Pinky and the Brain, and Duckman.