Actor C.W. Morgan, who played Hank Loomis in the original Scream, has died at 72. The news comes via a TMZ report citing Los Angeles County medical examiner records, which the outlet says place his death on August 30.
TMZ reports that an LAPD spokesperson attributed the death to natural causes, though that detail comes secondhand through the outlet rather than a direct statement from police or Morgan’s family. No representative or relative had issued a public statement as of this writing, and Rue Morgue was unable to independently confirm the cause or any further circumstances.
Morgan’s screen time in Scream amounted to only a few minutes, but the role carried outsized weight in Kevin Williamson‘s script. As Hank, father to Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), Morgan’s character is revealed late in the film to have had an affair with Maureen Prescott, Sidney’s late mother, years earlier, an affair Billy cites directly as the wound behind the divorce that fractured his family and is behind everything bloody that followed. Morgan briefly reprised Hank in Scream 3, closing a loose thread that Wes Craven‘s trilogy.
Rue Morgue will update this story if further details, or statements from Morgan’s family, become available.
