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Robert Hegyes, Juan Epstein of ‘Welcome Back, Kotter,’ dies at 60

By Claire Noland
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This post has been corrected. See note at the bottom for details.
Robert Hegyes, an actor whose character, Juan Epstein, was one of the Sweathogs on the 1970s TV sitcom ‘Welcome Back, Kotter,’ died Thursday of an apparent heart attack in New Jersey. He was 60.

Hegyes, of Hungarian and Italian descent, played Juan Luis Pedro Phillipo de Huevos Epstein on ‘Welcome Back, Kotter,’ which also starred John Travolta, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and Ron Palillo as high school students mentored by their teacher, played by Gabe Kaplan. It aired on ABC from 1975 to 1979.

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Hegyes suffered a heart attack at his home in Metuchen, N.J., and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, the Star-Ledger newspaper reported.

Hegyes also had a recurring role on ‘Cagney & Lacey’ in the late 1980s.

A full obituary will follow at latimes.com/obits.

[For the Record, 4 p.m. Jan. 26: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that Robert Hegyes died Tuesday. He died Thursday.]

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-- Claire Noland

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Claire Noland

Claire Noland, who joined the Los Angeles Times in 1994, became editor of curated email newsletters in spring 2015. She had been in the Obituary Department since 2006, the last six years as editor. Before that, she was an editor in Sports. A California native and graduate of Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, she worked at the Antelope Valley Press, Los Angeles Daily News and Minneapolis Star Tribune. She left The Times in December 2015.

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