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George Grizzard died recently at age 79. I knew his work mostly through his supporting roles, watching him in The Adams Chronicles in the long ago, and my original cast album of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but that was enough to make me admire him very much. I would be interested to hear from any BTers who saw him on stage.

Obituary

Mr. Grizzard’s career began in the 1950s and lasted more than 50 years. He had roles in movies and was a familiar face on television. But it was in the theater that he thrived, particularly in Mr. Albee’s plays. He appeared in the original 1962 Broadway production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” Mr. Albee’s seething drama of marital strife. More than 30 years later, he won a Tony Award for his performance in a revival of another Albee drama, “A Delicate Balance.”

In both plays he was singled out by critics for his ability to move dexterously from one emotional state to another. Howard Taubman, writing about “Virginia Woolf” in The New York Times, praised Mr. Grizzard’s ability to shift “from geniality to intensity with shattering rightness.” Vincent Canby, reviewing “A Delicate Balance” in 1996, wrote admiringly about the way Mr. Grizzard’s character exploded when cornered.

An appreciation by Richard Corliss in TIME.

You may not have known who George Grizzard was; renown on the stage (he won a Tony for Best Actor in A Delicate Balance) doesn't translate to mass fame as it once did. But whether you saw him as an oilman in Comes a Horseman with Jane Fonda, as an imperious lawyer on Law and Order or the ghost of Rue McClanahan's husband (a recurring role!) on The Golden Girls, you knew that that actor was those people. As Andre Bishop told the Los Angeles Times, "What was remarkable about his acting was he didn't seem to be acting at all. There was no sense of effort or strain. . . . The curtain went up and there was George, just being this character."
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Grizzard appeared often during the golden age" of live television drama. I was watching a teleplay one night in which his character became incensed at someone or something and started throwing furniture around. He may have forgotten his lines because instead of sanitized TV dialogue, what came out of his mouth was a series of real-life expletives at tremendous volume. He would have made a great King Lear.

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He may have forgotten his lines because instead of sanitized TV dialogue, what came out of his mouth was a series of real-life expletives at tremendous volume. He would have made a great King Lear.

Thanks, Farrell Fan. Apparently similar incidents were regular occurrences in the days of live TV drama. Gore Vidal, who wrote a lot of teleplays in that era, once recalled a young actress, overcome with stage fright, vomiting quietly into the lap of another actor during a scene. The camera didn't pick up her little accident, but Vidal said the actor, I forget who it was, had a very odd look on his face.

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