James Handy, 'Top Gun: Maverick' Actor, Killed in Stabbing at 81
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- James Handy, 81, was found unconscious with a stab wound to his chest in the front yard of a home on the 19200 block of Erwin Street in Tarzana around 9:30 a.m. on June 3, 2026, and was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
- Michael Gledhill, 44, who lives at the residence with his mother — Handy's girlfriend — called 911 and told the dispatcher, 'I am the son of man, I just killed the man of sin,' before flagging down responding officers and identifying himself as the killer, according to the LAPD statement.
- Gledhill was booked at Van Nuys Jail on one count of murder with bail set at $2 million; detectives called the incident isolated and said there is no ongoing danger to the public.
- Handy played the bartender in 2022's 'Top Gun: Maverick' and had scene-stealing small parts in 'Jumanji' (the exterminator), 'Logan' (the doctor treating Hugh Jackman's Wolverine), 'Arachnophobia' (Milton Briggs), 'The Rocketeer,' 'Brighton Beach Memoirs,' 'The Verdict,' and 'K-9.'
- Handy also had a recurring TV role as CIA director Arthur Devlin across eight episodes of 'Alias,' plus recurring stints on 'Melrose Place' and 'NYPD Blue,' and made his screen debut as a sheriff in 1981's 'Taps.'
- Handy's representative confirmed his identity in a statement expressing sadness, and the actor was a New York native whose career spanned more than four decades of film and television guest work.
Why it matters: An actor with nearly 200 credits across four decades — including a memorable small role in one of the biggest box-office hits of the 2020s — is now defined in death by the biblical phrasing of his alleged killer's 911 call, a detail the LAPD included verbatim in its statement and that speaks to a killing LAPD has deemed isolated.
