Rob Riley had the sort of steady and wide-ranging acting career that colleagues say is emblematic of Chicago theater.
He studied under famed Second City improv guru Del Close in the 1970s.
He performed at college auditoriums and makeshift barroom stages with the Reification Company improvisational group before being hired in 1980 as a mainstage cast member for Second City, where he worked with Tim Kazurinsky, Jim Belushi, George Wendt and Danny Breen.
Mr. Riley was a writer for “Saturday Night Live” in 1984 and 1985 alongside Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest and Martin Short.
But it was his work in Chicago, both serious and comedic, where he ultimately found his niche.
Mr. Riley cowrote, directed and starred in “Wild Men,” a musical satire about a group of men on a retreat in the North Woods that devolves into “a hilarious ‘Lord of the Flies’ for yuppies,” Chicago Sun-Times theater critic Hedy Weiss wrote after seeing the show’s debut 1992 at the Body Politic theater. Mr. Riley played Stuart Penn, a fraudulent manhood guru and debauched academic who leads the retreat.
He played President Ronald Reagan in the 2018 Goodman Theatre production, directed by Robert Falls, of “Blind Date,” in which Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time at a summit in Switzerland in 1985.
“The possibilities that the Chicago artistic community provides, it’s unique from New York and Los Angeles, where you have to specialize, and you get typecast,” said B.J. Jones, artistic director of the Northlight Theatre in Skokie, who directed Mr. Riley on several productions. “Here you can explore all forms of your creativity, and Rob did that full-throated.”
Mr. Riley died Aug. 8 at his home in Los Angeles from complications from a stroke he had in 2018, according to his family. He was 80.
“He made a really steady living in Chicago theater,” said his wife, Nonie Newton Riley, also an actor. “He was a working actor for 50 years, including commercial and voiceover work. That’s a big deal.”
The couple moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, where his wife was based, in 2013, and for years split time between the two cities.
Mr. Riley has a string of minor television and film credits, including a part in “Groudhog Day” as one of the two radio disc jockeys who wake actor Bill Murray every day when his clock radio alarm goes off. “OK, campers, rise and shine! And don’t forget your booties because it’s cold out there today!” he proclaims over and over in the movie.
Mr. Riley was born April 6, 1945, and grew up in Long Grove.
Robert Riley Sr., his father, was a salesman. Margaret Jones Riley, his mother, opened and ran a Montessori school.
Mr. Riley graduated from the University of Michigan and did three semesters of law school before dropping out.
“I didn’t want to live my life putting myself in the middle of other people’s conflicts,” he said in an interview with the Sun-Times in 1990.
He lived a ski-bum lifestyle in Colorado for a few years before returning to Chicago, his wife said.
“I was singing in a rock band,” Mr. Riley said in the interview. “We played Second City. I saw them doing what they did. I said, ‘I could do that.’ So I took the workshop.”
“He was just such a talent,” his wife said. “He could write. He was a musician. He skied. He rode a motorcycle. He swam with the endurance of a polar bear. We loved the fur off him like the Velveteen Rabbit.”
Among his many jobs in his 20s was running a thrift store on the North Side, his wife said.
“Rob Riley was always a hipster long before we started using that expression again,” said John Davies, who produced a number of short comedic films featuring Mr. Riley and Jim Belushi.
Kazurinsky said Mr. Riley was among the more intellectual members of Second City.
“He had a writer’s head, very sharp,” Kazurinsky said.
He pointed to one particular bit at Second City, in which the actors were playing members of a school PTA talking about the merits of sex education.
“Rob’s performance just destroyed me,” Kazurinsky said of the scene. “He was the zero-population-growth guy, and he was a very, very pompous guy who used a lot of facts that were just totally nonsense.”
Mr. Riley also is survived by his son William Riley, stepchildren Spencer Breen and Riley Breen and two grandchildren.
