Penny, who was born in Anniston in 1935, was a poet who spent three decades as an English professor, primarily teaching poetry and prose at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, according to AL.com.
Penny worked on the side in TV commercials for a local department store and a United Way campaign in Atlanta during the 1980s. Penny delved deeper into acting after leaving university in 1990.
“And then the movies started coming,” Penny told AL.com in 2008. “I was extremely fortunate. “I had these minor roles, but they sure helped pay the bills.”
Penny has appeared in over 30 films and television shows. In the 1994 film “Forrest Gump,” he was credited as a “crony,” and in the 2002 film “Sweet Home Alabama,” he played a bumbling small-town lawyer.
Penny also appeared in the films “Mississippi Burning,” “My Cousin Vinny,” and “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” as well as the television series “In the Heat of the Night.”
Bob Penny cause of death: How did Bob Penny die?
Bob Penny, an Alabama college professor and actor who appeared in films such as “Forrest Gump” and “Sweet Home Alabama,” has died at the age of 87.
According to an obituary from Laughlin Service Funeral Home in Huntsville, Penny died on Christmas Day. There was no mention of a cause of death.
