<p><br /> Tom Bosley, whose long acting career was highlighted by his hugely popular role as the understanding father on television's nostalgic, top-rated 1970s comedy series Happy Days, has died. He was 83.<br /> </p><p><br /> Bosley died of heart failure at a hospital near his Palm Springs home. His agent, Sheryl Abrams, said he was also battling lung cancer.<br /> </p><p><br /> When Happy Days debuted in 1974 and ran for 11 seasons. When he was first offered the co-starring role in the series about teenage life in the 1950s, he turned it down.<br /> </p><p><br /> "After rereading the pilot script," he recalled in a 1986 interview, "I changed my mind because of a scene between Howard Cunningham and Richie. The father/son situation was written so movingly, I fell in love with the project."<br /> </p><p><br /> Propelled by America's nostalgia for the simple pleasures of the 1950s, slowly built to hit status, becoming television's top-rated series by its third season.<br /> </p><p><br /> It also made a star of Henry Winkler, who played hip-talking, motorcycle-riding hoodlum Arthur "Fonzi" Fonzarelli.<br /> </p><p><br /> His image initially clashed with that of Richie and his "straight" friends. But over the show's 11-season run Fonzarelli would transform himself from high school dropout to successful businessman.<br /> </p><p><br /> Bosley went on to a recurring role in Murder, She Wrote as Sheriff Amos Tucker, who was often outsmarted by Angela Lansbury's mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher.<br /> </p>
