LOS ANGELES (AP) - Dennis Patrick, a veteran actor who played the Ewing family's banker on "Dallas," has died after a fire at his home. He was 84.

The actor whose career spanned five decades was found Sunday in the Hollywood Hills home, said Michael Riddle, a supervising investigator with the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.

Many of Patrick's roles leaned toward the macabre, including appearances on the "The Twilight Zone," "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" and the campy '60s soap opera "Dark Shadows." His more recent appearances include the 1988 TV miniseries "War and Remembrance," and the 1994 movie, "The Air Up There."

He was on the long-running prime time soap "Dallas" from 1979 to 1984 as Vaughn Leland, a banker who is double-crossed by the show's scheming J.R. Ewing.

Neighbors said Patrick was battling cancer and needed kidney dialysis. Investigators believe he may have died from smoke inhalation. An autopsy was pending.

"He was having some problems," family friend Siobhan Burns-Walden told reporters. "He was getting pretty weak."

It took about 50 firefighters to extinguish the blaze that broke out around 1:15 p.m.

He was the second performer to die in a house fire in the city in less than a week. Actress Teresa Graves, who starred as a sassy undercover cop in the 1970s television police drama "Get Christie Love!", died Thursday in a fire at her home. She was 54.