John Vernon, who starred in CBC-TV's 1960s drama Wojeck before moving on to a career in Hollywood, has died.

He was 72.

John Vernon in Wojeck

According to his family, Vernon – who became well-known to a later generation as the scheming Dean Wormer in 1978's Animal House – died peacefully at his Los Angeles home Tuesday.

Born Adolphus Raymondus Vernon Agopsowicz in Zehner, northeast of Regina, he started acting in high school and went on to study at the Banff School of Fine Arts and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Vernon's stage training led to a job performing live in the early days of CBC-TV, which he recalled fondly in a 1988 interview. "Live TV was something else," he said. "An actor got to do Chekhov one week, Shakespeare a few weeks later."

Wojeck turned out to be his breakthrough role. Though he did only 20 episodes of the show, "the reaction was so strong that it reached the attention of some Hollywood producers, who brought me to L.A.," he said.

His films included Point Blank, Dirty Harry, Alfred Hitchcock's 1969 cold war thriller Topaz and the Clint Eastwood western The Outlaw Josey Wales, as well as comedies like Animal House and the 1988 blaxploitation spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.

Altogether, he appeared in more than 100 TV shows and films but returned to voice work, primarily for video games, in the last 10 years.