Alan Rachins dead at 82: Actor starred on LA Law and Dharma & Greg

Alan Rachins, the beloved TV star of such hit series as LA Law and Dharma & Greg, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 82.

He succumbed to heart failure while asleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center early Saturday morning, his widow Joanna Frank told The Hollywood Reporter .

Rachins became a household name in the 1980s and 1990s LA Law, in which he played the rich, tough-as-nails, philandering attorney Douglas Brackman.

In a switch that showed his range, he also played a marijuana-smoking hippie with a fondness for conspiracy series on the sitcom Dharma & Greg from 1997 to 2002.

He also enjoyed a varied stage career, including a run in the original off-Broadway production of the boundary-breaking revue Oh! Calcutta.

Rachins was born in 1942 to a Jewish family in Cambridge, Massachusetts and grew up under the thumb of what he described as a 'domineering father.'

Arts and entertainment became an escape valve for young Rachins, who was particularly inspired by the 1955 picture Rebel Without A Cause.

'I didn't get to express myself around him and I guess I saw this as a means of being able to express myself,' Rachins once told New Jersey Stage .

'And when I saw Rebel Without A Cause, which was a movie I saw with my father when I was eleven - James Dean, at one point in that movie, yelled at his father. And it all came together for me. Somehow, this was a way to just completely express everything that's inside of you that's been bottled up.'

Although he enrolled at the prestigious Wharton business school at the University Of Pennsylvania, he ultimately dropped out and pursued a career in acting.

His early working years revolved around the New York stage - including Oh! Calcutta, the scandalous revue created by the English writer Kenneth Tynan, a free speech crusader who was one of the first people to say 'f***' on UK television.

Rachins featured in the original 1969 off-Broadway production, whose sexual frankness and frequent nudity made it a touchstone of the counterculture.

He took a years-long hiatus from acting to focus on writing, selling scripts to such memorable 1980s shows as Knight Rider and Hill street Blues.

However, in 1985, Rachins made a roaring comeback to acting with the independent romantic comedy Always, which also featured his wife Joanna Frank.

One year later, he landed the role that made him a household name - the ruthless and sexually insatiable lawyer Douglas Brackman on LA Law, which was co-created by his brother-in-law Stephen Bochco.

The legal drama was a smash hit, with a cast featuring such names as Harry Hamlin, Jill Elkenberry - and Joanna Frank in a recurring role as Brackman's ex-wife.

Rachins won the hearts of fans for his charismatic performance as Brackman, who often injected humor into the plotlines with slapstick gags.

'In the pilot episode, there was nothing of the more flamboyant or bizarre side of Douglas; he was going to be the hard-line office manager, the penny pincher,' Rachins told the New York Times in 1990. 'It was kind of limited, and I didn't know where it was going. But quickly it developed a lot more color and flamboyance.'

'Alan does comedy so well, it's one of his strengths that we write to,' the show's executive producer David E. Kelley explained.