A seasoned journeyman comic and light dramatic character player whose credits span daytime and primetime TV, Broadway and features, Kiser and his flexible body and rubbery face earned a boost when he was cast as the dead-but-still-partying boss in "Weekend at Bernie's" (1989).

Kiser had accumulated three full decades of credits before that "break". In the 1960s, he worked on such daytime dramas as "The Doctors" and "The Secret Storm" while he studied at the Actors Studio, often appearing in productions of both the Director's Unit and Writer's Unit. He also had a supporting role in Neil Simon's