Award winning actor Ron Silver has lost his battle with cancer. He was 62.
Silver had been fighting esophageal cancer for two years. "Ron Silver died peacefully in his sleep with his family around him early Sunday morning," said Robin Bronk, executive director of Creative Coalition - an art and political group founded by Silver, Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon.
The actor was twice Emmy nominated - for his role as a White House strategist in The West Wing and his part in murder thriller Billionaire Boys Club. He won a Tony Award in 1998 for his work on David Mamet play Speed The Plow.
He also starred in several films including action blockbuster Time Cop and 1990 drama Reversal of Fortune - the latter winning him critical acclaim.
Silver was a liberal activist until the September 9/11 attacks, which saw him switch his party affiliation from Democrat to "9/11 republican". Silver, who spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention, claimed his new political views made it a struggle to find work in liberal Hollywood.
He said in 2004, "It's affected me very badly. I can't point to a person or a job I've lost, but this community is not very pluralistic. I haven't worked for 10 months."
Silver wrote on his blog in 2007, "Often when I walked onto the set of The West Wing some of my colleagues would greet me with a chanting of 'Ron, Ron, the neo-con.' It was all done in fun but it had an edge."
He irked liberals even further when he hit out at Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 by narrating Fahrenhype 9/11 - a deconstruction of the documentary.
He said of Moore, "Michael Moore and that faction of the party was one of the factors that did not let me support the Democratic nominee this year (2004). He is a charlatan in a clown suit."
Silver is survived by his son and daughter.