Edward Herrmann

Edward Herrmann, an Emmy- and Tony-winning actor who portrayed Franklin D. Roosevelt, narrated History Channel documentaries and became a prime-time television star in the long-running series “Gilmore Girls,” died Wednesday at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He was 71. He had brain cancer, said his agent, Robyn Stecher.

The 6-foot-5 actor portrayed Nelson Rockefeller in Oliver Stone’s 1995 biopic “Nixon” and William Randolph Hearst in Peter Bogdanovich’s 2001 film “The Cat’s Meow.”

Herrmann was indelibly linked to FDR, playing him in the 1976 ABC miniseries “Eleanor and Franklin” and a 1977 sequel, “Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years.”