William Atherton, the character actor widely remembered for playing bureaucratic antagonist Walter Peck in Ghostbusters and unscrupulous reporter Dick Thornburg in Die Hard, was photographed in Los Angeles this week at age 78, appearing sprightly while running errands.
Witnesses and images from the outing show Atherton wearing a sky‑blue shirt untucked over loose black trousers and orange sunglasses as he made a stop at a dry cleaner to pick up clothing. The Connecticut‑born performer retained the dark blond hair familiar to audiences who saw him in the 1970s and 1980s films that defined much of his career.
Atherton first drew widespread attention in the 1974 film The Sugarland Express, starring with Goldie Hawn in the theatrical feature debut of director Steven Spielberg. He later appeared in a string of notable pictures throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including The Day of the Locust and Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and secured the two parts that would most define his public persona during the 1980s.
In the 1984 supernatural comedy Ghostbusters, Atherton played Environmental Protection Agency inspector Walter Peck, a stiff, officious foil to the film’s leads. The portrayal proved so effective that audiences frequently conflated the actor with his character in public. Atherton later recalled difficulties with that association and one anecdote, recounted by Ghostbusters co‑writer and director Harold Ramis, described a busload of teenagers in New York shouting a line from the film at Atherton as he walked down the street.
Four years after Ghostbusters, Atherton appeared in the action film Die Hard as television reporter Dick Thornburg, another role that established him as a memorable on‑screen antagonist. He subsequently returned to both franchises in later installments, appearing in Die Hard 2 and in a recent Ghostbusters sequel, joining some original co‑stars as well as younger performers.
Beyond those franchises, Atherton’s credits span decades and genres. He had roles in the 1974 film version of The Great Gatsby and the 2003 Tom Cruise drama The Last Samurai, and he has been a frequent guest on television, with appearances on series such as Law & Order, Murder, She Wrote, Desperate Housewives and Monk. More recently, he appeared in the independent film Where Did the Adults Go?, written and directed by Courtney Marsh.
Atherton’s public sighting in Los Angeles underscores the long career of a character actor whose portrayals of officious or unsympathetic figures in prominent 1980s films left a lasting impression on popular culture. Colleagues and audiences have continued to call on him for roles that draw on that established screen persona, while he has sustained steady film and television work across more than five decades.