The Original 'Night Court' Premiered in 1984 — These Cast Members Are No Longer With Us

As long as film and television have been a source of entertainment, Hollywood has found a way to make even the most banal activities interesting. Back in the 1950s, there was a rise in family-friendly shows that included hits like Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, and My Three Sons. It's strange to think that families would sit down together in order to watch a program that could have mirrored the very lives they were living.

Sometimes a show would revolve around work, which sounds even more boring than staring at the nuclear family, and yet, it never was. The earliest police procedural series was called The Plainclothesman and it ran from 1949 to 1954. It established a genre that viewers are obsessed with today. This is why we have so many Law & Order spinoffs. Within that category lives courtroom programs, and few did it better than Night Court. Sadly, more than a few cast members have died since the show ended.

Actor Harry Anderson was the man tasked to hold the wacky cast of characters together in Night Court. He played Judge Harry Stone for the full run of the show. He was an amateur magician on the show and in real-life, and eventually opened up a magic shop in New Orleans that he sold after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. In 2018 he died in his sleep at the age of 65 after suffering a stroke due to heart disease and the flu.

Although Paula Kelly only spent one season on the show, her turn as public defender Liz Williams earned her an Emmy nomination. She was also an incredibly talented singer and choreographer who worked with the likes of Sammy Davis Jr., Quincy Jones, and Gene Kelly. According to The Washington Post, she passed away Feb. 8, 2020 at the age of 77 from heart failure.

True to his name, Richard Moll's character Bull was large and imposing but quite gentle at times. It was the perfect role for Richard, who measured an impressive 6 feet 8 inches. He spent the entire series playing the lovable yet somewhat naive bailiff whose stature was indicative of all bark and no bite. On Oct. 26, 2023, Richard passed away peacefully in his sleep at the respectable age of 80 years old, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Selma Diamond died just as Night Court was starting. She played the gravelly-voiced bailiff Selma Hacker who probably could have stuck with the show had she not passed away from lung cancer on May 13, 1985 at the age of 65. Her talents couldn't be put into a single box. The small but might actor was also a cartoonist who penned humor essays which paved the way for her career as a comedy writer. They just don't make them like Selma anymore.

There was no one who seemed more put upon than Charles Robinson's court clerk Macintosh "Mac" Robinson. It was his job to wrangle the clowns, which he did with the perfect straight comedy performance. His entertainment career began with singing and ended on the stage. He was 75 when he died from cardiac arrest due to complications of glandular cancer, on July 11, 2021.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, every comedy needed a smart sassy gal who didn't take any crap from the men around her. Markie Post's character was that woman. From Season 2 on, she played public defender Christine Sullivan who had a sort of Ross and Rachel relationship with Judge Harry Stone. After the series ended, Markie steadily worked in television almost up to her death on Aug. 7, 2021. She passed away at the age of 70 from cancer, per The New York Times.