Richard Riehle, Legend Of Korra & Office Space Star, Dies At 78

Published Oct 19, 2026, 4:26 PM EDT Matthew Rudoy is one of ScreenRant's Movie & TV News Editors. He covers the latest in movie & TV news, with a focus on major franchises like Star Wars, The Boys, and Game of Thrones, and also writes some features and reviews. He wrote lists for ScreenRant from 2017-2022, became a news writer in 2023, a senior staff writer in 2024, and an editor in 2025. Richard Riehle has died at the age of 78. Riehle was a character actor who starred in over 400 projects, with some of his best known roles including Tom Smykowski in Office Space and voicing Bumi in The Legend of Korra, where he also provided additional voices. With some of The Legend of Korra and Office Space's best quotes, both Tom and Bumi are considered fan-favorite characters. The former character is a product manager who survives a layoff and hit-and-run incident, leading to a financial settlement that enables him to construct his "Jump to Conclusions" mat, while the latter is the eldest child of Aang and Katara. Friends of Riehle confirmed to TMZ that The Office Space and The Legend of Korra actor died from natural causes in Los Angeles on Thursday, October 15. Riehle was born in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin on May 12, 1948. He went to school at Notre Dame University, which he followed up by getting an MFA at the University of Minnesota. After performing at the Meadow Brooke Theatre in Rochester, Michigan and doing regional theatre in the Pacific Northwest, he had an uncredited role in the 1975 John Wayne movie Rooster Cogburn. His first credited film role was as The Bartender in 1977's Joyride. In movies, he went on to play Reverend Scroggins in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Carlson in Of Mice and Men (1992), Old Guard in The Fugitive (1993), Charlie Clark in Casino (1995), Warden Ed Fayne in Desperate Measures (1998), Coast Guard Officer in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), and Commander Joe Gorman in Mighty Joe Young (1998). He played Santa Claus in numerous films, including The Hebrew Hammer (2003), The Search for Santa Paws (2010), A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011), The Three Dogateers (2014), and Puppy Star Christmas (2019). Along with playing Bumi and providing additional voices across seasons 2-4 of The Legend of Korra, Riehle played the television roles of Clifford Vargas and Lietuenant Lannon in Quantum Leap, Detective Parres in Golden Girls, Mr. Evans in Roseanne, Batai in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jack Billings in Ally McBeal, Merrick in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Milo Schwarz in Chicago Hope, Jedediah in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Officer Jack Sloan in The West Wing, Dr. Jeremy Lucas in Star Trek: Enterprise, Warden McQueen in The Young and the Restless, and Army Johnson in Psych. The 2010s saw Richard Riehle not only playing Santa Claus in multiple films, but in The League and Two and a Half Men as well. That decade also featured him as George Menken in The Mindy Project, Norman in Modern Family, Walt Osorio in NCIS, and Sheriff Dugan in The Middle. In the 2020s, he played Uncle Monty in Fuller House and Warden Reynolds in Barry. Richard Riehle