John Ashton, the actor known for the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, died on Thursday, September 26, 2024. He was 76 years old.

Ashton starred in the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies as Detective John Taggart, who was partnered with Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold). They were ordered to keep an eye on Eddie Murphy’s out of town cop Axel Foley and ended up helping him bring down several bad guys. He returned to the franchise for 2024’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, now as the police chief.

Ashton was born on February 22, 1948, in Springfield, Massachusetts, spent two years at Defiance College in Ohio, then transferred to the University of Southern California where he earned a Bachelor of arts in theater.

His onscreen career began in 1973 in An Eye for an Eye, followed by guest spots in Kojak, Emergency!, and Columbo. In the 1970s, he did mostly TV work in Police Story, Barnaby Jones, Police Woman, Wonder Woman, M*A*S*H*, Starsky and Hutch, and Dallas.

Ashton was in Borderline, The A-Team, and he starred in the John Hughes movies Some Kind of Wonderful and She’s Having a Baby. He was in Midnight Run, the TV series Hardball, Little Big League, Fast Money, Judging Amy, Gone Baby Gone, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and his final role was in Axel F.