Hollywood Actor Jack Betts, known for ‘Friends’ and ‘Spider-Man,’ passes away at 96

Jack Betts, Hollywood's veteran actor, passed away on Thursday, June 19, 2025, in his sleep at home in Los Osos, California, his nephew, Dean Sullivan, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 96. Born on April 11, 1929, in Jersey City, New Jersey, Jack Fillmore Betts claimed that he was related to the 13th U.S. president, Millard Fillmore.

At the age of 10, he reportedly moved with his family to Miami. He was inspired to pursue acting after he saw Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939). After completing his graduation from Miami Senior High School, he studied theater at the University of Miami. He acted in the Moss Hart play Light Up the Sky in Cuba. Later he moved to New York and made it to Broadway in 1953 in Richard III, starring José Ferrer.

The actor played the role of Henry Balkan in the 2002 Spider-Man movie alongside Toby McGuire. He had also featured in one of the all-time popular American sitcoms, Friends, in which he played the character of Tom. Besides this, Betts had also appeared in other TV comedies such as Everybody Loves Raymond and My Name is Earl. He was also a part of spaghetti Westerns and once played Dracula on Broadway.


According to media reports, Betts shared a home with his great friend and Everybody Loves Raymond actress Doris Roberts. He often escorted her to events from the late 1980s until her death in April 2016. Betts was a member of The Actors Studio. He played the role of Llanview Hospital doctor Ivan Kipling on ABC’s One Life to Live from 1979 to 1985.

In his acting career, he has played roles in several soap operas, including General Hospital, The Edge of Night, The Doctors, Another World, All My Children, Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light, Loving, and Generations.

In Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002), the American actor essayed the role of Henry Balkan, who told Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn that he’s through at Oscorp Technologies—“You’re “out, ”Norman”—but the Green Goblin will soon turn him and his fellow board members into skeletons during an attack on Times Square.

He made his big-screen debut in The Bloody Brood (1959), starring Peter Falk, then joined Anthony George, Sebastian Cabot, and Doug McClure in 1961 to play detective Chris Devlin on the second and last season of CBS’ Checkmate, created by Eric Ambler.