In several action comedies of the 1980s, John Ashton, who has died aged 76 from cancer, played disgruntled, buffoonish or flummoxed figures caught up in chaotic situations not entirely of their own making.

The first, Beverly Hills Cop (1984), was originally intended as a dramatic vehicle for Sylvester Stallone: “Stallone was going to make it ‘Rambo Blows Up Beverly Hills’ or something,” said Ashton, who first auditioned for the film in that form.

When it was subsequently retooled for the overnight sensation Eddie Murphy, it became a comedy in which other cast members were also permitted to be funny. Among them was Ashton, who played the dyspeptic Sergeant John Taggart. With his partner, Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), he is assigned to keep an eye on Murphy’s irreverent Detroit native Axel Foley, who makes waves as he hunts a killer in Beverly Hills.

Foley runs rings around the pair. During a stakeout, he inserts bananas into their car’s exhaust pipe, causing the vehicle to stutter and stall when they try to follow him. Ashton’s irritability was nicely offset by Reinhold’s peppy naivety. One of the pleasures of the film was seeing Taggart gradually come around to Foley. Having begun the movie at loggerheads, they end it as allies.

After witnessing the enthusiastic response to the movie at an industry screening, Ashton and Reinhold stopped by a Los Angeles cinema a few weeks later to see how it was going down with the public. Seated in the balcony, they marvelled at the audience “hooting and hollering and screaming and yelling”.

Directed by Martin Brest and released in the US in December 1984, Beverly Hills Cop took $316m worldwide, and was one of the country’s top 10 highest grossing films in 1984 and 1985.

Ashton and Reinhold returned in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), as well as the recent fourth instalment, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024), in which Taggart has now been promoted to police chief. “If we were gonna do [another] Beverly Hills Cop, the only way it could happen was if all of us were in it,” said Murphy earlier this year.

Less commercially successful than Beverly Hills Cop but far superior was the buddy movie Midnight Run (1988), also directed by Brest. It starred Robert De Niro as a dishevelled bounty hunter transporting a turncoat Mob accountant (Charles Grodin) across the US. Ashton was superb as the comically coarse Marvin Dorfler, a rival bounty hunter who tries repeatedly to intercept the duo and claim the money for himself. Dunderheaded the character may have been, but Ashton also showed convincingly that he could be intimidating when the need arose.

The role had been written as a straightforward heavy. “But that’s not how I played him,” said Ashton, who approached Marvin instead as someone who was simply doing his job. It worked: though the character died halfway through George Gallo’s script, Brest ordered a rewrite. “About a month in, Marty said: ‘We can’t kill Dorfler, the audience will hate us!’” Ashton recalled. He was spared and given additional scenes, including a memorable appearance during the tense climax.

Seeing Ashton square off repeatedly against De Niro was among the film’s highlights. It was also vital to him to win the role in the first place. He had arrived at the audition to find “about 30 guys in the hallway going, ‘I can’t believe I gotta read with Bobby De Niro’. Everybody’s freaking out.” Ashton, on the other hand, was champing at the bit. “Nobody’s getting this role but me,” he decided.

During the ensuing improvisation, De Niro was meant to hand him a set of keys. As he went to take them, De Niro tossed them on the floor. “Fuck you!” barked Ashton, sparking an escalating exchange of obscenities. “I know every other actor picked those up,” he reflected. He later discovered that, once he left the room, De Niro had told Brest: ‘I want him.’”

Ashton was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Edward and Eva (nee Wells), and raised in Enfield, Connecticut. He was educated at Enfield high school and Defiance College, Ohio, then studied theatre at the University of Southern California. In 1970 he won a scholarship to travel abroad, and appeared in theatre productions across Europe.

He always referred to theatre as his first love, and it was in that medium that he won his only prizes: a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award in 1973 for A Flea in Her Ear, and a Drama Logue award in 1982 for a production of Sam Shepard’s True West, in which he starred opposite Ed Harris.

His first film was the slasher thriller An Eye for an Eye (1973). He then became a familiar face with guest spots on TV shows such as Kojak, Columbo and Starsky & Hutch. In 1978 he appeared in six episodes of the soap opera Dallas as a crony called upon to do the dirty work of JR Ewing (Larry Hagman).

Film work included the acclaimed cycling drama Breaking Away (1979), the Charles Bronson thriller Borderline (1980), John Schlesinger’s chaotic comedy Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), the monster movie King Kong Lives (1986) and several John Hughes projects: Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), She’s Having a Baby (1988) and the children’s comedy Curly Sue (1991). In 1989 he played a worried father whose seven-year-old son is kidnapped in the factually based TV drama I Know My First Name is Steven (1989), and at a press conference to promote the film, tearfully recounted his childhood memories of being followed home from school by a stranger.

There was much talk of a follow-up to Midnight Run, and even a script that Ashton read but felt was not up to snuff. A trio of undistinguished sequels were eventually made for TV without the original personnel. In the first two, Another Midnight Run and Midnight Runaround (both 1994), Dorfler was played by Ed O’Ross.

Ashton worked continuously in film and television. Notable parts included a prison guard in Instinct (1999) with Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr, and yet another cop in Ben Affleck’s impressive thriller Gone Baby Gone (2007). Ashton’s final performance was as a judge in two forthcoming westerns: Hot Bath, Stiff Drink an’ a Close Shave and its sequel, Hot Bath an’ a Stiff Drink 2.

He is survived by his third wife, Robin Hoye, and two children, Michelle and Michael, from his previous marriages to Victoria Runn and Bridget Baker, both of which ended in divorce.

• John David Ashton, actor, born 22 February 1948; died 26 September 2024