Character actor David Huddleston, a prolific Hollywood presence with a whopping 145 credits to his name, died Tuesday of advanced heart and kidney disease at his home in Santa Fe, the Los Angeles Times reports. Huddleston was 85.

Huddleston was a frequent presence both in films and on television for over 50 years. Among his better-known roles are one of Rock Ridge’s many men named Johnson in Blazing Saddles; Santa Claus himself in the 1985 Dudley Moore movie of the same name; Stars Hollow mayor Harry Porter on Gilmore Girls; and Grandpa Arnold on The Wonder Years, for which he was nominated for an Emmy in 1990.

He will perhaps be best remembered, though, for the Coen Brothers’s cult opus The Big Lebowski, in which Huddleston played the title character, Jeffrey Lebowski—a grumpy, wheelchair-bound millionaire who serves as the film’s primary antagonist. Though Huddleston appears in only a handful of scenes in the movie—it’s mostly about Jeff Bridges, who plays another guy named Jeffrey Lebowski—he makes a big impression in them, showing off the gruff, authoritative bluster that characterized so many of his roles.

Huddleston was born September 17, 1930 in Virginia. He studied acting via the G.I. Bill after serving as an Air Force mechanic, and made his small-screen debut on the western Shotgun Slade in 1960. Huddleston would go on to appear on nearly every popular TV series of the 1970s, including Bewitched—on which he played three different characters in three different episodes—The Waltons, Charlie’s Angels, and Bonanza. Westerns were a particular specialty; he also appeared on Gunsmoke and How the Wet Was Won. No wonder Mel Brooks cast Huddleston in his seminal western parody in 1974.

He never had many big, meaty starring roles, but Huddleston didn’t seem to mind that. In fact, his hometown paper, the Santa Fe New Mexican, reports that Huddleston was proud of his status as a character actor: one of his favorite anecdotes to tell centered on a young man who recognized the actor in a grocery store and professed his admiration for Huddleston. Then this happened:

A beaming Huddleston, flush with pride, moved over to the next aisle where he overheard the male fan speaking to his girlfriend. “Who was that man you were talking with?” she asked. “David Huddleston, the character actor,” he said. “You know the most insignificant people,” she responded.

He is survived by his wife, Sarah Koeppe, and his son, Michael Huddleston—a character actor.