George Cooper Grizzard Jr. (April 1, 1928 – October 2, 2007) was an American stage, television, and film actor. He was the recipient of a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award, among other accolades.

Biography

Early life and education

Grizzard was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina and raised in Washington, DC. He once told an interviewer that he was "an only child and probably very lonely, so I made up children to play with — Gene and Bounds and Mrs. Pig and Mrs. Hog and their children and a town called Scottina. It was all a child's fantasy, but I guess that just kind of developed into wanting to create people." He appeared in student productions in junior high school and decided to become an actor while attending Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, where he was president of the drama club. He went on to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studied advertising and drama.

Career

He returned to Washington after graduation to work in advertising while appearing in amateur productions. He began his professional acting career in 1950 at Washington's Arena Stage, appearing in some of its earliest productions, with his first leading role in Dark of the Moon. He went to New York frequently for stage roles, and studied with Sanford Meisner, Philip Burton, and Alan Schneider. Grizzard's stage debut was as in the role of Miner in The Corn Is Green in 1944. He made his Broadway debut in The Desperate Hours in 1955, about jailbreakers terrorizing a family, in which he played Hank Griffith, the younger brother of a character played by Paul Newman. He frequently appeared in the plays of Edward Albee, and was in the original 1962 production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He played Nick alongside Melinda Dillon as his wife Honey, a young couple visiting Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill as the warring spouses, Martha and George. The role won him a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album along with his castmates. Grizzard played an unscrupulous United States Senator in the film Advise and Consent in 1962. Beginning in 1963, Grizzard was a member of the original company of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, which also included Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn. He played the title role in the Guthrie's inaugural production of Hamlet alongside Tandy, and featured in many productions from the Guthrie's first two seasons, including roles in Henry V, Three Sisters, and Saint Joan. Grizzard also appeared on Broadway in The Disenchanted in 1958, Face of a Hero in I960 and Big Fish, Little Fish in 1961. His film roles included the drama From the Terrace with Paul Newman (1960), the Western Comes a Horseman with Jane Fonda (1978), and a Neil Simon comedy, Seems Like Old Times (1980). He also appeared in the 1996 revival of A Delicate Balance and the 2005 revival of Seascape. He also starred in You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running. He won the 1996 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for A Delicate Balance. Additional Broadway credits include The Creation of the World and Other Business, The Glass Menagerie, The Country Girl, The Royal Family, and California Suite. Grizzard guest-starred several times during the 1990s on the NBC television drama Law & Order as defense attorney Arthur Gold. He also portrayed President John Adams in the Emmy Award winning PBS miniseries The Adams Chronicles, produced by WNET. In 1980, he won an Emmy for his work in The Oldest Living Graduate. He starred as reporter Richard Larsen in The Deliberate Stranger, a television movie about serial killer Ted Bundy. Grizzard declined to discuss his acting technique, saying it was intensely personal, and that he "didn't think it was anybody's business." But he once said that actors needed to "have this mystery to lure an audience in order for them to do part of your work, to involve them. Don't do it all for them." He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2002.

Death

Grizzard died in Manhattan of complications from lung cancer. According to his New York Times obituary, his only survivor was his partner, William Tynan.

Filmography

Film

Television