David Soul, the actor and musician known for starring the ’70s cop show Starsky & Hutch and for the chart-topping 1977 ballad “Don’t Give Up On Us,” has died. As the BBC reports, Soul’s wife Helen Snell says that he passed away yesterday “after a valiant battle for life in the loving company of family.” Soul was 80.

David Soul was born David Richard Solberg in Chicago, and he grew up largely in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Soul got into music while studying at the University Of The Americas in Mexico, and he dropped out to pursue a music career. Soul also got into acting, helping to found the Firehouse Theater in Minneapolis. In 1966, Soul first found national fame by playing a masked-singer character called the Covered Man on The Merv Griffin Show.

In the late ’60 and early ’70s, David Soul played a number of guest roles on popular TV shows, and he also acted in movies like Johnny Got His Gun and Magnum Force. In 1975, Soul landed the role of Detective Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson on the popular cop show Starsky & Hutch. While working on the show, Soul also got back into recording. He released a self-titled 1976 album, and he went to #1 with the song “Don’t Give Up On Us.” A couple of other singles, “Going In With My Eyes Open” and “Silver Lady,” made the top 10. Soul released a few more albums after that, but they were nowhere near as successful.

Soul kept acting into the ’10s, mostly onstage. In 1980, he was arrested for attacking his pregnant then-wife, and he went into treatment for alcoholism. Later, Soul moved to the UK and became a British citizen. When I wrote about “Don’t Give Up On Us” in my Number Ones column four years ago, Soul responded on Twitter: “Just like shooting ‘clay-pigeons,’ isn’t it, Tom? The poor thing doesn’t stand a chance!… Give you a strong 2/10 because at least you got the name right.” I mostly didn’t understand what he was talking about.

Below, check out some of David Soul’s work.