He was one of those journeyman actors that inspired me when I was first getting in the biz: a strong supporting actor at important stages around the country & not above juicy bits in TV & films.
George Grizzard made more than 40 films & hundreds of TV appearances, but it was in the theatre that he had his greatest triumphs. He created the role of Nick, the young newlywed academic who finds himself subject to an evening of malicious mocking by an older couple, in openly gay playwright-Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962). Grizzard would become one of the foremost interrupters of the works of Albee.
Grizzard was praised for his ability to switch moods swiftly & create the emotional climaxes characteristic of Albee's work. He won a Tony award for his work in the 1996 revival of Albee's A Delicate Balance. In 2005 Grizzard starred with Frances Sternhagen in a revival of Albee's Seascape. These are both roles that I also played.
Grizzard had his finest movie role in Otto Preminger's Advise & Consent (1962) , even with such scene-stealers as Henry Fonda & Charles Laughton, as the ruthless, power-seeking senator who blackmails a young politician about his homosexual past. On TV he had a recurring role on Law & Order.
In the 1960s, Grizzard played Hamlet in a modern-dress production directed by Tyrone Guthrie at his new theatre in Minneapolis. Grizzard stayed at the Guthrie Theater for 2 seasons.
He returned to Broadway as Tom in a revival of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie (1965), he in a revival of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl (1972), repeating the role in a TV movie version in 1974.
I saw him give a sparkling performance in one of my favorite theatre experiences, Ellis Rabb's hit revival of George Kaufman & Edna Ferber's satire on the Barrymore Family- The Royal Family (1975), as Tony Cavendish, the heavy-drinking, womanising actor (based on John Barrymore) he was flamboyantly charismatic. He matched the work Eva Le Gallienne & Rosemary Harris & was a joy to see & hear.
After 4 nominations, he finally won a Tony Award in 1996, for A Delicate Balance. His last screen role was in Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers (2006), in which he played an old man haunted by memories of his younger self (played by Ryan Phillippe) fighting in the battle of Iwo Jima.
Grizzard lived in NYC, with his long time partner- William Tynan. His last Broadway play was openly gay playwright- Paul Rudnick's Regrets Only (2006), in which he played a fashion designer campaigning for gay rights. Grizzard died in autumn of 2007. He was born on this day, 83 years ago.
Betty White & George Grizzard!
