Tom Bosley, 'Happy Days' father

LOS ANGELES - Tom Bosley, 83, whose long acting career was highlighted by his role as the understanding father on the nostalgic and top-rated 1970s comedy series Happy Days, died Tuesday.

Mr. Bosley died at a hospital near his Palm Springs home. His agent, Sheryl Abrams, said he had been battling lung cancer.

TV Guide ranked Mr. Bosley's Happy Days character, Howard Cunningham, ninth on its list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" in 2004. The show debuted in 1974 and ran for 11 seasons.

After Happy Days, Mr. Bosley went on to a recurring role in Murder, She Wrote. He also was the crime-solving priest in The Father Dowling Mysteries, which ran from 1989 to 1991.

When he was first offered the costarring role in Happy Days, he turned it down.

"After rereading the pilot script," he recalled in a 1986 interview, "I changed my mind because of a scene between Howard Cunningham and Richie. The father/son situation was written so movingly, I fell in love with the project."

On, Murder, She Wrote, Mr. Bosley played Sheriff Amos Tucker, who was often outsmarted by Angela Lansbury's mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher.

In The Father Dowling Mysteries, Mr. Bosley played the avuncular Father Frank Dowling, assisted in his detective work by a nun, Sister Steve, played by Tracy Nelson.

Mr. Bosley made his mark on Broadway in 1959 with a Tony Award-winning performance in the title role in Fiorello! The play depicted the life of New York's colorful mayor of the 1930s and '40s, Fiorello La Guardia. For two years, Mr. Bosley stopped the show every night when he sang in several languages. The play won a Pulitzer Prize and Mr. Bosley received the Tony for best actor in a musical.

Mr. Bosley moved to Hollywood in 1968 and did not return to Broadway until 1994, when he originated the role of Belle's father in Disney's production of Beauty and the Beast.

In Hollywood, the rotund character actor found steady work in the occasional movie and as a regular on weekly shows starring Debbie Reynolds, Dean Martin, Sandy Duncan, and others.

Mr. Bosley appeared in a handful of movies, among them Love With the Proper Stranger, Divorce American Style, The Secret War of Henry Frigg, and Yours, Mine and Ours.

Born in Chicago in 1927, Mr. Bosley served in the Navy before returning to his hometown to study at De Paul University. Intrigued with acting, he enrolled at the Radio Institute of Chicago and began appearing in radio dramas. He made his theatrical debut in a production of Golden Boy.

Mr. Bosley married dancer Jean Eliot in 1962 and the couple had one child, Amy. Two years after his wife's death in 1978, Mr. Bosley married actress-producer Patricia Carr.