THIS JUST IN:

Ron Silver, best known for his roles on The West Wing and the film Reversal of Fortune, has died. The cause was esophageal cancer. He was 62.

“Ron Silver died peacefully in his sleep with his family around him this morning,” Robin Bronk, executive director of the Creative Coalition, said in a statement to the New York Post. Silver had helped found the group, which supports a range of liberal causes.

Silver, a onetime liberal activist and Actors’ Equity Association union leader, later became involved in Republican politics, even speaking at the party’s 2004 convention.