Lauter's memorable feature roles include the captain of the prison guard football team in "The Longest Yard" (1974), Tom Cruise's Vietnam Commander in Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), and the working-class Jewish father of Brendan Fraser in "School Ties" (1992). On the small screen, Lauter was a corrupt sheriff on "B.J. and the Bear" and a no-nonsense general who becomes a renegade to combat the machinations of a secret government agency in "Stephen King's Golden Years" (CBS, 1991).