Ziskie played supporting roles on “House of Cards,” “Law & Order,” “St. Elsewhere,” “The Blacklist,” “Sex and the City,” “ER,” and more.

Dan Ziskie, Treme and Chappelle’s Show actor, dies at 80

Ziskie played supporting roles on "House of Cards," "Law & Order," "St. Elsewhere," "The Blacklist," "Sex and the City," "ER," and more.

By Wesley Stenzel

Published on August 15, 2025 04:00PM EDT

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Dan Ziskie. Credit:

J. Countess/WireImage

Dan Ziskie, the character actor known for his work on dramas like *Treme* and *House of Cards* as well as comedies like *Chappelle's Show*, died July 21 in New York City. He was 80.

The cause was arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to a death notice.

Born in Detroit in 1944, Ziskie was a track and field athlete at the University of Michigan, where he studied English. He worked as a crewman on a freighter on the Great Lakes and as a journalist before joining the Second City comedy troupe in Chicago, where he performed alongside the likes of John Belushi, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Joe Flaherty.

Dan Ziskie on 'House of Cards'.

Patrick Harbron/Netflix

After finding success performing in Chicago, Ziskie moved to New York and made his Broadway debut as an understudy in *Morning's at Seven* in 1980. He acted opposite Judd Hirsch in the play *I'm Not Rappaport* in 1985.

After appearing in several minor TV roles in the early 1980s, Ziskie began booking bigger projects in 1985, when he appeared in films like *The Man with One Red Shoe* opposite Tom Hanks, *Twisted* opposite Christian Slater, and Robert Altman's *O.C. and Stiggs*. Over the next several years, he appeared in single episodes of shows like *Remington Steele*, *St. Elsewhere*, *The Equalizer*, *Newhart*, and *Murphy Brown*. He also played supporting roles in the comedy films *Adventures in Babysitting* and *Troop Beverly Hills*.

In the 1990s, Ziskie acted on shows such as *Quantum Leap*, *Law & Order*, *Ghostwriter*, *ER*, and *DEA*, primarily portraying politicians and military figures. He also appeared in *The Jackal*, which starred Bruce Willis and Richard Gere.

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Ziskie continued with similar roles in the 2000s, playing authority figures in movies like *Thirteen Days* starring Kevin Costner, *Bad Company* with Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock, and *Eight Below* featuring Paul Walker. On the small screen, he played judges, doctors, law enforcement officers, and more military personnel on series like *Sex and the City*, *24*, *NCIS*, and *Ugly Betty*. He also played small roles in Steven Spielberg's *War of the Worlds* and Charlie Kaufman's *Synecdoche, New York*.

Perhaps Ziskie's most memorable performance of the aughts came from a provocative sketch on *Chappelle's Show* in 2004, which saw the actor play the patriarch of a white family whose surname is a homophone of a racial slur.

Ziskie's most prominent roles arrived in the last decade of his career. He portrayed construction magnate C.J. Liquori in 18 episodes of HBO's *Treme*, and played the vice president of the United States in six episodes of *House of Cards*. He also appeared in three episodes of the Oscar Isaac–starring miniseries *Show Me a Hero*; acted in five eps of *Zero Hour*; and guested on shows like *The Blacklist*, *Blue Bloods*, *The Good Wife*, and *Madam Secretary*.**

Dan Ziskie on 'Chappelle's Show'.

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Ziskie was also an accomplished photographer. He released *Cloud Chamber*, a book collecting his portraits of everyday New Yorkers, in 2017, and saw his work featured in *The New York Times*, *The Guardian*, the *Financial Times*, and more.

Ziskie is survived by his brother David, his sister-in-law Cynthia, and their three children, as well as other extended family.**

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Source: “AOL TV”