Some sad news to begin 2014 with. James Avery, a well-known and respected TV and voice actor, has passed away at the age of 68. Avery died on New Year’s Eve in a Los Angeles hospital after a battle with an illness he was struggling to recover from. The actor had open-heart surgery in November just before Thanksgiving, which resulted in weeks of complications.

Avery appeared in numerous TV shows, animated series, video games, movies, and TV movies over the course of his career, but two stand tall above the others. The first is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where the actor played Will Smith’s Uncle Phil in 147 episodes of the series. The second is the popular animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series that ran from 1987 to 1996, where he voiced the infamous villain Shredder in 110 episodes.