Val DufourVal Dufour, best known as an Emmy-winning regular on daytime dramas, but best known to MSTies as Quintus "STAAAY!" Ratcliff, the overreaching psychicicical researcher in episode 806- THE UNDEAD, died July 27, 2000. He was 73. Born Albert Valery on February 5, 1927, in New Orleans, he began his theatrical career at age 6, when he appeared in a minstrel show. After college, he moved to New York, where he studied at the Actors Studio with Uta Hagen. Hagen's studio was often the doorway to acting jobs and he soon found himself in Broadway shows including "South Pacific," and "Mister Roberts." In the 1950s, he went west to Hollywood, but starring roles in major pictures proved elusive. You may be able to spot him among the casts of thousands in the epics "Ben Hur" and "King of Kings," but mostly Dufour had to settle for guest roles in TV series such as "Gunsmoke" and "Have Gun Will Travel." It was during this period that DuFour first worked in daytime dramas: He made his daytime television debut in the now-forgotten soaper "First Love" in 1955. Twelve years later he would make daytime dramas his prime occupation, first starring as Andre Lazar in "Edge of Night" from 1965 to 1966, then moving to a well-remembered stint as Walter Curtin Sr. in "Another World" from 1967 to 1972). He then moved to the series "Search for Tomorrow," where he played John Wyatt from 1973 to 1979; he won the Emmy for outstanding actor in a daytime drama series in the 1976-77 season. 
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