TVSquad

There's good casting and then there's great casting. NCIS has had a propensity for great casting when it comes to the father's of the core characters. Michael Nouri has been spot on as Ziva's autocratic Israeli father. Ralph Waite was a surprising, but superb, choice as Jethro's down to earth father.

Now, we've just heard the news that there's another pop coming to NCIS.

If you haven't read about the famous TV star chosen and you don't want to know about it, please, don't read any further. However, if you can handle casting without feeling like the story lines are spoiled, follow after the jump.

Sometimes TV writers and producers aren't well known to fans by name. But this one was.

Larry Hertzog was actually one of the more well-known producers and writers on television. Besides creating and producing the cult favorite Nowhere Man, Hertzog also worked on many other shows over the past 30 years, including Stingray, Painkiller Jane, Seaquest DSV, Raven, Hardcastle and McCormick, Mrs. Columbo, 1-800-MISSING, Hunter, Profiler, La Femme Nikita, Hart to Hart, Missing, Walker, Texas Ranger, and many others. He also wrote an episode of 24, and creator Joel Surnow even named a character "Larry Hertzog" in honor of him.

Recently, Hertzog hosted a podcast with a friend called Drinks with Larry and Lauren. You can still listen to the many podcasts in the archive. He also kept a blog at that site but it hasn't been updated since 2007.

Hertzog died of cancer at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles last Saturday. He was 56.

[Thank you to Noam for letting us know about Larry.]

A new weekly feature here at TV Squad, as we list some recent deaths of those involved with TV, on screen and behind the scenes.

• Roscoe Lee Browne: The veteran actor appeared in a number of TV shows, including All in the Family, Benson, Columbo, Mannix, The Invaders, Will and Grace, and a voice actor in cartoons. He was a classically trained film and theater actor as well. He died April 11 in L.A. of cancer at age 81.
  
• Stan Daniels: He co-created Taxi and won several Emmys for that show and his writing on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He died of heart failure on April 6 at age 72.