Michael Jeter

Michael Jeter, the slight character actor who won a supporting actor Emmy as a shrimpy assistant football coach on CBS ' s " Evening Shade " and was known on " Sesame Street " as The Other Mr. Noodle, has died, his publicist said yesterday. He was 50.

Mr. Jeter ' s body was found in his Hollywood Hills home Sunday and friends said they had communicated with him as recently as Saturday, said the actor ' s publicist, Dick Guttman.

An autopsy was planned to determine the cause of death. Guttman said Mr. Jeter, who was HIV-positive but had been in good health, apparently died of natural causes.

Mr. Jeter was filming the Christmas movie " The Polar Express. " Although not all of his work was complete, Guttman said the producers believe there is enough footage to preserve Mr. Jeter ' s role in the film.

The slim 5-foot-4 Mr. Jeter had thinning red hair, a bushy mustache and a broad grin, and he used his abbreviated size and professorial appearance to play an array of tough runts, sniveling wimps and big-hearted underdogs.

" One of the things about being an actor is that you can play out all your socially unacceptable expressions and feelings, " he said in a 1992 interview. " I often see myself in my private life as being a pinched and confined person. When I get on the stage, I can open up. "

Among his favorite roles was the kindly Mr. Noodle on PBS ' children ' s show " Sesame Street. " The character was nicknamed The Other Mr. Noodle when Mr. Jeter took over the role from its original performer, Bill Irwin. The two Noodles, the show explained, were brothers.

" Kids would recognize him and come running up to him, ' Mr. Noodle! Mr. Noodle, ' " Guttman said. " He really loved that. "

On " Evening Shade, " he played the blustery assistant football coach Herman Stiles opposite the calm, paternal lead character played by Burt Reynolds. During the show ' s run from 1990 to 1994, Mr. Jeter was nominated for a supporting actor Emmy three times and won in 1992.

He later had notable film roles as a kindhearted mental patient in 1998 ' s " Patch Adams, " a mouse-loving prisoner in 1999 ' s " The Green Mile " and a dinosaur-hunting mercenary in " Jurassic Park III. "

Mr. Jeter started as a stage actor and won a 1990 supporting actor Tony Award as provincial German Jewish bookkeeper Otto Kringelein in the musical " Grand Hotel. "

Mr. Jeter grew up in Lawren-ceburg, Tenn., and studied acting at Memphis State University. He started his career in Baltimore because he had heard it was tough to get work in New York without an Equity union card.

He worked at Baltimore ' s Center Stage theater teaching performance to children and supplemented his income by tending bar until he achieved union membership and moved to New York.

He had roles in the 1979 film musical " Hair " and a friend, actor William Devane, got him a recurring role on the TV drama " From Here to Eternity, " which ran from 1979 to 1980.

Mr. Jeter continued working in theater while securing small roles in films such as " Ragtime " (1981), " Zelig " (1983) and " The Money Pit " (1986). He suffered from two bouts of drug and alcohol abuse before deciding the irregular life of a performer was too much for him.

" My decision to get into show business was not a sober decision, " he said. " Things for me had ground to a halt as an actor. I wasn ' t getting work. I didn ' t know any more if I wanted to be in the business. So I got out of it for a few years. "

He learned to type, studied word-processing software programs and became a legal secretary abandoning acting until a casting director sought him out in 1987. He was offered a small role as a homeless man named Calvin Klein in " Designing Women, " made by the same people who would later produce " Evening Shade. " That pushed him back into theater which led to steady television and film roles.

Mr. Jeter is survived by his companion; his parents; a brother; and four sisters.