Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Severn Darden attended the University of Chicago. Darden’s offbeat and intellectual sense of humor, appropriate for someone who attended the University of Chicago and in fact a major element in the style of The Second City at that time, is evident throughout his work. One example of his offbeat humor is the way he squeezed the phrase “Know thyself” into the seven-character limitation of a New Mexico license plate: NOYOSEF. Darden appeared in various movies and television series. His best performance is probably in the comedy The President’s Analyst; there he has a major role as Kropotkin, a Soviet agent with a laid-back persona (much like Darden’s own). An early film, “LUV” (1967) (based on the play of the same title by Murray Schisgal), in which he played a junk dealer, also starred Jack Lemmon, Peter Falk, Elaine May, and Nina Wayne. One of his earliest TV roles was on Car 54 Where Are You? in the episode “Toody and the Art World” in which he played the artist Karpathia. He also played a stuffed shirt toy manufacturer in an episode of The Monkees and Dr. Herb Chisholm in a 1976 episode of the NBC situation comedy The Practice. He appeared in “Never Con a Killer,” the pilot for the ABC crime drama The Feather and Father Gang, in 1977. He played the cold-hearted Kolp in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and a highly respected, but befuddled college dean, in the 1985 comedy Real Genius. In 1986, he was featured in the Off-Broadway improvisational sketch comedy show, Sills & Company, directed by Paul Sills. After triple heart bypass surgery, he lived in semi-retirement in Los Angeles before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1992. Severn Darden died there of congestive heart failure at age 65. His interment was at Lake Lawn Park and Mausoleum in his hometown of New Orleans.