Peter Scolari, an Emmy-winning actor who co-starred in the early 1980s sitcom Bosom Buddies with lifelong friend Tom Hanks, has died.

Ellen Lubin Sanitsky, his manager, confirmed his death. He had been battling cancer for two years, according to reports.

Ellen stated: “He was a wonderful, wonderful, extraordinary actor."

Scolari, whose other credits include Newhart and HBO’s Girls, received his first major acting job in the ABC comedy Goodtime Girls in 1980. Later that year, he and a then-unknown Tom Hanks participated in Bosom Buddies, in which they played two men who dress up as women in order to live in an economical, all-female apartment building.

Although the show, which aired on ABC, only lasted two seasons, it established a 40-year friendship between the two stars. Scolari would appear in Hanks’ directorial debut, That Thing You Do!, as well as the Hanks-produced HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, during the next few decades. Both did voice work in the 2003 film The Polar Express.

Scolari is survived by his wife and four children, who died at the age of 66.

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