George Grizzard

Versatile Actor of Stage and Screen

By Adam  Bernstein   Washington Post Staff Writer        Thursday, October 4, 2007

George Grizzard, 79, a Tony Award-winning stage actor who was also a  versatile presence on film and television for five decades, died Oct. 2 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. He had lung cancer.

Mr. Grizzard grew up in Washington, where he performed at Arena Stage before distinguishing himself on Broadway in the mid-1950s. He won the Tony for best actor in a 1996 revival of Edward Albee's "A Delicate       Balance". as a seemingly refined husband in a family filled with tensions and secrets.

George Grizzard won a Tony Award for best actor in 1996.                   (By Rick Maiman -- Associated Press)

"Mr. Grizzard is all dozy rectitude until cornered, when he, too, explodes,"  New York Times theater reviewer Vincent Canby wrote.

Over the years, Mr. Grizzard became a respected interpreter of Albee and playwright A.R. Gurney. He also gave sharply defined performances in many genres, saying that he hoped to stress the humanity in every part.

He received Tony nominations as a supporting player in "The Disenchanted"  (1958), in which he played a naive literary acolyte, and in "Big Fish, Little Fish"  (1961) as a brash novelist. In both shows, he appeared opposite the gravelly voiced scene-stealer Jason Robards Jr. and other veteran actors. John Gielgud directed Mr. Grizzard in the second.

Mr. Grizzard appeared in the original production of Albee's scorching marital drama "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"  (1962) as a virile     and ambitious college biology teacher.

In a cast that included Arthur Hill and Uta Hagen as a sparring older couple, Mr. Grizzard and Melinda Dillon played a young and seemingly golden husband and wife. A night of hard drinking and psychological warfare nearly destroys them all.

Mr. Grizzard was singled out by Times theater critic Howard Taubman for presenting "geniality to intensity with shattering rightness."

But Mr. Grizzard left after three months, later telling the Associated Press that he found the role exhausting and depressing.

"That's the guy Edward wanted destroyed," he said, "and he did a pretty good job of doing just that. And the audience . . . every time     George and Martha stuck another knife in, they laughed and clapped."

Mr. Grizzard also had what he considered a better offer: to star as Hamlet -- his first leading role in a Shakespeare drama -- at the Guthrie    theater in Minneapolis. The decision to leave such an established Broadway  show for a regional theater was not an isolated case for Mr. Grizzard, who described himself as a restless actor.

He told a reporter decades later that he did not like being obligated to one show for very long, regardless of the caliber. "It's like being in     a velvet jail," he said.

George Cooper Grizzard Jr., an accountant's son, was born April 1, 1928, in Roanoke Rapids, N.C.

In Washington, he was president of  Wilson High School's dramatics club and had other minor stage experience, but his strict parents     discouraged him from pursuing a theatrical career while at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

After graduating in 1949, he worked for an advertising company in  Washington but quit to perform at Arena Stage. He also studied with acting coach Sanford Meisner in New York before moving there in 1954.

His breakthrough came a year later on Broadway in the crime thriller  "The Desperate Hours," in which he played the younger brother of a     convict (Paul Newman) who holds a suburban family hostage. In his relatively minor role, Mr. Grizzard was named best newcomer in a Variety poll of drama critics.

He won his coveted role in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"  on the recommendation of the director, Alan Schneider, who had been Arena    Stage's artistic director.

Throughout an active career in regional theater, he returned periodically to Broadway, several times in productions that featured a series of one-act plays. They included Robert Anderson's "You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running" (1967) and Neil Simon's farce "California Suite" (1976), the second of which was wildly popular.

He said he felt increasingly irrelevant in a theater atmosphere that emphasized experimental works and young actors. He began appearing in revivals, including "The Country Girl"  (as a cranky theater  director), "The Royal Family" (as a flamboyant stage actor) and     "Show Boat" (as Capt. Andy).

He also turned more to TV and film, having made a strong impression on-screen as a political villain in the 1962 movie version of           "Advise & Consent."He was mostly considered a character actor, at ease in dramas (Comes a Horseman,1978), comedy  (Seems Like Old Times,1980) and offbeat dramas (Wonder Boys, 2000).

Sometimes he was too adaptable for his own good, appearing as the father of the bride in the 1984 Tom Hanks comedy "Bachelor Party." He called the film "tasteless. I end up in bed with four hookers in leather pants."

He had been a regular on TV anthology series since the mid-1950s and in recent years portrayed defense lawyer Arthur Gold on the drama "Law & Order."

He also played future president John Adams in a 13-part public television series, "The Adams Chronicles ,"which aired in 1976. He won an Emmy Award for best supporting actor for "The Oldest Living Graduate" (1980), a drama that aired live on NBC  about a father (Henry Fonda) and son (Grizzard) arguing over property.

Mr. Grizzard's last major appearance was last year in the Paul Rudnick stage comedy "Regrets Only,"  in which he played a closeted fashion designer who develops a gay political consciousness.

Survivors include his companion, William Tynan.