Larry Riley, 39; ‘Knots Landing’ Actor

Larry Riley, the actor best known for his character Frank Williams on the television series “Knots Landing,” has died. He was 39.

Riley died Saturday in Burbank of renal failure resulting from AIDS.

He had won a 1991 Soap Opera Digest award for best supporting actor on the prime-time soap opera for which he also scored music.

He was also known for his role in the stage version of “A Soldier’s Play” and for its screen version, “A Soldier’s Story.” He portrayed the black soldier C.J. Memphis who commits suicide due to torment from his tough sergeant, and won the Obie and Clarence Derwent awards for the stage work.

Riley starred as Martin Luther King Jr. in the CBS television movie “Unconquered” in 1989.

“I was there (in Memphis) the day King was shot,” Riley told The Times at the time the film was aired. “And I don’t mean I was in the same town. I mean I was outside the Lorraine Motel, waiting for him when he was shot. I was part of a youth effort (he was 17) for the sanitation workers’ strike that Martin was there to support.

“Martin didn’t have to come there,” he said, “and what I remember, even more than the horrible shock of those days, was how I got to know Martin, Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson as human beings quite different from their media images.”

Riley shifted easily between stage, television and film but had no doubt where his primary loyalty lay: “Theater,” he once told The Times, “is what lifted me up and let me find out about every facet of my personality. I’ve been singing since I could cry. I acted in college.”

A native of Memphis, Tenn., he attended Memphis State and American University in Washington, D.C.

Riley co-founded Memphis’ Playhouse on the Square.

He is survived by his wife, Nina; son, Larry Riley Jr. of Memphis; his mother, Corine Riley of Memphis, a grandson, two sisters and a brother.

The family has asked that any memorial contributions be made to the American Foundation for AIDS Research or to the Magic Johnson Foundation.