James Karen (born Jacob Karnofsky; November 28, 1923 – October 23, 2018) was an American character actor of Broadway, film and television.

Karen is known for his roles in Poltergeist, The China Syndrome, Wall Street, The Return of the Living Dead, Invaders from Mars and The Pursuit of Happyness,[1] but was perhaps best known as the signature pitchman for Pathmark, famously appearing in commercials for the now-defunct East Coast-based supermarket chain from the late 1970s to the early 1990s which earned his nickname "Mr.

[5] Karen's big break came when he was asked to understudy Karl Malden in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

He is also known for having played Herbert Purcell, a businessman and leader of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter, in a 1981 episode of The Jeffersons; and the evil tycoon Nathan Lassiter, who killed the town of Walnut Grove in the final TV movie of Little House on the Prairie.

[8] Karen's other notable film credits include The China Syndrome and Oliver Stone's Wall Street.

[6] Perhaps his best known roles were in the low-budget horror comedy The Return of the Living Dead, where Karen starred as the manager of a medical warehouse who inadvertently releases a gas that re-animates the dead,[9] and in Poltergeist (1982) where he played real-estate developer Teague, who built the California planned community of Cuesta Verde on top of a former cemetery.

[9] In a 2006 interview about his role in The Return of the Living Dead, Karen noted that he helped write most scenes for his character: “It was the deal where he figures out he’s becoming a zombie and decides to incinerate himself in the crematorium...He kisses his wedding ring as he goes in.