\n<\/p>\n
Denis Arndt, a former helicopter pilot whose <\/span>acting career reached its zenith when he made his Broadway debut at age 77 in the comedy \u201cHeisenberg\u201d and earned a Tony Award nomination, died on March 25 at his home in Ashland, Ore. He was 86.<\/p>\n His wife, Magee Downey, confirmed the death. She said the specific cause was not known. <\/p>\n Mr. Arndt built his reputation as a stage actor at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the 1970s and \u201980s. He later became a familiar face on television series like \u201cL.A. Law\u201d and \u201cPicket Fences\u201d and played one of the detectives who interrogate Sharon Stone in a famous erotically charged scene in \u201cBasic Instinct\u201d (1992).<\/p>\n He first appeared in \u201cHeisenberg,\u201d a two-character play by Simon Stephens, which the Manhattan Theater Club produced at City Center\u2019s Studio at Stage II in 2015. The play transferred to the Samuel J. Friedman Theater on Broadway the next year.<\/p>\n Mr. Arndt played Alex, a reserved, 75-year-old Irish-born butcher, who is in a London train station when he is unexpectedly kissed on the neck by Georgie (Mary-Louise Parker), a loud, impulsive and mysterious 42-year-old American. Her boldness ignites a romance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ben Brantley, reviewing \u201cHeisenberg\u201d<\/a> in The New York Times, called Mr. Arndt and Ms. Parker \u201cthe sexiest couple on a New York stage now.\u201d Mr. Arndt, he wrote, \u201cmakes what has to be the most unlikely and irresistible Broadway debut of the year. He lends roiling, at first barely detectable energy to the seeming passivity of a man who, on occasion, finds himself crying for reasons he cannot (nor wants to) explain. But this ostensibly confirmed celibate oozes a gentle, undeniable sensuality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In an interview with The Times<\/a> during the run of the play, Mr. Arndt spoke ecstatically about the chemistry he felt onstage with Ms. Parker, who was appearing in her seventh Broadway show.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel compelled to give her my complete attention,\u201d he said. \u201cI see the goddess. I do. I truly do.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Arndt, Ms. Parker told The Times, \u201cis everything I could want \u2014 passionate and so smart and so sensitive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Heisenberg of the play\u2019s title is the Nobel Prize-winning German physicist Werner Heisenberg<\/a>, known for his uncertainty principle. That principle is not mentioned by the characters, but his name evokes the unpredictability of their romance.<\/p>\n Mr. Arndt was nominated for the Tony for best actor in a play in 2017 but lost to Kevin Kline, who won for his performance in the No\u00ebl Coward comedy \u201cPresent Laughter.\u201d<\/p>\n When Mr. Arndt and Ms. Parker reprised their roles at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 2017, Charles McNulty of The Los Angeles Times wrote, \u201cArndt lends poignant majesty to his character\u2019s rediscovered sensuality.\u201d<\/p>\n Denis Leroy Arndt was born on Feb. 23, 1939, in, Clyde, Ohio, and later moved with his parents and two younger sisters to Spokane, Wash. His father, Bryce, was a railroad switchman, <\/span>and his mother, Arline, owned a seamstress shop, where she made curtains.<\/p>\n He started acting in high school, but after graduating he enlisted in the Army, where he spent about a decade. He trained as a helicopter pilot and later flew missions in Vietnam, receiving two Purple Hearts when his aircraft came under fire. He enjoyed flying \u2014 \u201cYou had the machine in your hand, and it became an extension of your central nervous system,\u201d he told The Times \u2014 and worked as a commercial pilot in Alaska after his discharge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He studied history at the University of Washington on the G.I. Bill, but he did not graduate and soon began acting in Seattle theaters. In the 1970s, he started a long association with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in Ashland.<\/p>\n Mark Murphey<\/a>, who shared the stage with Mr. Arndt in \u201cHamlet,\u201d \u201cRomeo and Juliet\u201d and \u201cTwo Gentlemen of Verona,\u201d said in an interview: \u201cAs an actor, he was in the moment; he was different every time, every night was different. He was just incredibly vital and riveting. He just had that edge.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Arndt played the lead in \u201cKing Lear,\u201d Eugene O\u2019Neill\u2019s \u201cLong Day\u2019s Journey Into Night\u201d and other plays at the festival and often performed at other theaters on the West Coast. He also appeared in Michael Weller\u2019s \u201cThe Ballad of Soapy Smith\u201d at the Public Theater in Manhattan in 1984 and \u201cRichard II\u201d at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in 1987.<\/p>\n In 1988, he left the Oregon festival, where he was playing Hickey in O\u2019Neill\u2019s \u201cThe Iceman Cometh,\u201d to join the cast of \u201cAnnie McGuire,\u201d a new sitcom starring Mary Tyler Moore, as her husband, a construction engineer. He had already done some film and television work, but a commitment to a series with a star like Ms. Moore was something new in his career.<\/p>\n The Sunday Oregonian newspaper reported at the time that some people at the festival were upset that Mr. Arndt had left. But, he told the newspaper, landing a role in a high-profile network series was a reward for his years of stage work. \u201cThe idea of being invited to play marbles with the big kids is something we all aspire to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n (He would return to the Oregon festival in 2014 as Prospero in \u201cThe Tempest\u201d and in multiple roles in \u201cThe Great Society,\u201d the second of Robert Schenkkan\u2019s plays about President Lyndon B. Johnson.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAnnie McGuire\u201d lasted only 10 episodes, but Mr. Arndt soon became a regular presence on television. He played lawyers in recurring roles on \u201cL.A. Law,\u201d \u201cPicket Fences” and \u201cThe Practice\u201d and was seen on \u201cBoston Legal,\u201d \u201cLife Goes On,\u201d \u201cSupernatural,\u201d \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy,\u201d \u201cThe Good Fight,\u201d \u201cHow to Get Away With Murder\u201d and \u201cMr. Mercedes.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to his wife, Mr. Arndt is survived by two daughters, McKenna Rowe and Bryce Brooks, and a son, Tanner Arndt, from their marriage; three daughters, Tammy, Laurie and Kirsten Arndt, and a son, Scott, from his marriage to Marjorie Arveson, which ended in divorce; and many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n Mr. Arndt was not the first choice for \u201cHeisenberg,\u201d but he stepped in quickly when Kenneth Welsh<\/a>, who was originally cast in the Off Broadway production, left four days before rehearsals were to begin.<\/p>\n \u201cI was prepared for this,\u201d Mr. Arndt told The Los Angeles Times. He added, \u201cMy insight, chemistry, with this woman, her incredible skill \u2014 it\u2019s too much fun to use all the tools in my box.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n