Bob Penny, a college lecturer from Alabama and actor who played minor parts in films including “Forrest Gump” and “Sweet Home Alabama,” has passed away at age 87.
Where will Bob Penny be buried? Burial site and Find a Grave details
According to an obituary from the Huntsville-based Laughlin Service Funeral Home, Penny passed away on Christmas Day. The reason for death was not disclosed.
Penny, a poet who was born in Anniston in 1935, taught poetry and prose at the University of Alabama in Birmingham for three decades as an English professor, according to AL.com.
In the 1980s, Penny got work as an extra performer in TV advertisements for a nearby department store and an Atlanta-based United Way campaign. Following her retirement from the university in 1990, Penny devoted more time to performing.
“Then the movies started to come,” Penny said in 2008 to AL.com. “I was quite fortunate. I had these pretty minor parts, but they undoubtedly assisted in covering the mortgage.
More than 30 movies and TV shows featured Penny. In the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump,” he was listed as a “crony,” and in the 2002 movie “Sweet Home Alabama,” he portrayed a clueless lawyer from a small-town.
In addition to “In the Heat of the Night,” Penny’s other film credits include “Mississippi Burning,” “My Cousin Vinny,” and “The Legend of Bagger Vance.”
The burial site of Bob Penny hasn’t been disclosed by the family yet, when they do, you’ll be the first to know.
