An actor who played George Costanza's boss on Seinfeld and also starred on Malcolm in the Middle has shot himself in the head at his Cincinnati apartment.

Montgomery police Chief Don Simpson says 61-year-old Daniel von Bargen called emergency services on Monday morning after shooting himself in the temple.

Simpson said on Thursday that von Bargen told the dispatcher he was supposed to go to a hospital that day to have some toes amputated because of diabetes complications and had already had one leg amputated.

He said he was feeling depressed before he shot himself.

Von Bargen appeared on four episodes of Seinfeld as Mr Kruger.

He also played Commandant Edwin Spangler on Malcolm in the Middle.

He was taken to a Cincinnati hospital. His condition wasn't immediately known.