<text>  CNNDaniel von Bargen, the talented character actor perhaps best known for playing George Costanzas imbecilic boss Mr. Kruger during the last season of Seinfeld, has died. He was 64. Von Bargen, who also stood out as Commandant Edwin Spangler on the ABC sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, died Sunday after a long illness, his friend, actor Bob Colonna, said. Cincinnati TV station WLWT also reported the news. Other details of his death were not known. In February 2012, von Bargen was seriously injured when he shot himself in the temple in an apparent suicide attempt, distraught because he had been battling diabetes and was set to have two toes removed. The versatile von Bargen rose from the dead as the satanic Nix in the Clive Barker horror film Lord of Illusions 1995; played a futuristic sheriff in The Postman 1997, directed by and starring Kevin Costner; and portrayed a Southern lawman who pursued George Clooneys character in the Coen brothers O Brother, Where Art Thou? 2000. The Hollywood Reporter: Bruce Sinofsky, Oscar-nominated director, dies at 58 . An expert at playing authority figures, von Bargen was a member of the Air Force on NBCs The West Wing and in the 1996 film Broken Arrow, a SWAT communicator in The Silence of the Lambs 1991, a cop in Basic Instinct 1992 and Super Troopers 2001, a secret service agent in I.Q. 1994, a warden in Steven Spielbergs Amistad 1997 and a federal agent in The Majestic 2001. The Hollywood Reporter: Leonard Nimoy called irreplaceable by Tom Selleck . His film résumé includes the notable films Company Business 1991, Woody Allens Shadows and Fog 1991, Jonathan Demmes Philadelphia 1993, RoboCop 3 1993, Crimson Tide 1995, Looking for Richard 1996 and Snow Falling on Cedars 1999. He also guest-starred on such TV shows as Spenser: For Hire, All My Children, NYPD Blue, The X-Files and The Practice. A native of Cincinnati who graduated from Purdue University, von Bargen joined the Trinity Square Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, after college. He appeared in a David Mamet production of Uncle Vanya opposite Christopher Walken, then attracted Hollywoods eye in 1989 when he played Maj. Manley Battle in the Larry Gelbart satire Mastergate on Broadway. The Hollywood Reporter: Hollywoods 100 favorite films . On Seinfeld, his Mr. Kruger was the incompetent owner of Kruger Industrial Smoothing a company that tried and failed to remove the green tint from the Statue of Liberty and the boss of George Jason Alexander by then finished with the Yankees in Season 9 of the NBC hit. And on Malcolm in the Middle, von Bargen played the hard-nosed, eyepatch-wearing Spangler, the head of cadets at Marlin Academy. He clashed often with the troublemaking Francis Christopher Masterson, the oldest of Malcolms Frankie Muniz brothers. In 2013, von Bargen starred in The Treatment at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York. I feel a huge wave of sorrow and relief at the passing of this remarkable man, Colonna said. I treasure the years when I worked with him at Trinity Rep and in a couple of TV films. I admire his excellent body of work in the movies. And I mourn for the darkness and pain that were his final years. God bless him. He was a hell of a guy. People weve lost in 2015 . 2015 The Hollywood Reporter. All rights reserved. 