Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,751

This is the grave of George Grizzard.

Born in 1928 in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, Grizzard grew up in Washington, D.C. He was pretty well off but a lonely kid who started developing imaginary friends to play with, which grew into characters and thus creativity. He went to the University of North Carolina for college, studying both advertising and drama. He was a lot more interested in the latter. He moved back to Washington after graduating in 1950, working in an ad agency while spending all his time trying out for theater productions. He started having success. In fact, he had appeared in some regional but legit theater when he was in high school. He became a star of the Washington scene and started going to New York sometimes to perform as well. That led to his 1955 Broadway debut in The Desperate Hours, a new Joseph Hayes play adapted from his own novel about some criminals terrorizing a family. The lead in that production was Paul Newman. Grizzard played his younger brother. That was a huge step in his career and also summed up where he would stand–never a Newmanesque star, but then who is? But as a supporting player? He’d have a long career there.

In fact, Grizzard became such a key Broadway supporting player that he was cast in the original production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Mostly, Grizzard would stay on Broadway. He’d do some TV shows, usually one off episodes of things filmed in New York. In fact, his first Hollywood role was reprising his role as the scumbag senator in Advise & Consent in Otto Preminger’s adaptation of it. That role was like 7th in the cast listing, but still a key one.

It wasn’t until pretty late in his career that Grizzard became a staple of television and supporting film roles. He won an Emmy in 1980 for The Oldest Living Graduate, an adaptation of a Preston Jones play. For those of you who are true fanatics about the show–and I know there are many–he frequently showed up in Law and Order as defense attorney Arthur Gold, a nice repeating character. When PBS did a miniseries called The Adams Chronicles, Grizzard played John Adams. I sort of doubt he could be as absolutely perfect to play him as Paul Giamatti, but I haven’t seen this and I am sure it is more than fine. In any case, the series was well-received and won some Emmys. He was also the reporter in The Deliberate Stranger, a TV movie about Ted Bundy. Sounds avoidable.

In film, Grizzard appeared occasionally. He was in From the Terrace, with Paul Newman, in 1960, a John O’Hara adaptation. In 1978, he appeared with Jane Fonda in Comes a Horseman. He was in the adaptation of a Neil Simon play, Seems Like Old Times, in 1980. He also had a small role in Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers.

But Grizzard was really a theater guy through and through. The only downside of this is that it’s harder to be remembered since you have to see it live. I wish I saw more live theater, that’s for sure. Grizzard won the Tony for Best Actor in 1996 for A Delicate Balance, an Edward Albee play. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1959 for The Disenchanted and in 1961 for Big Fish, Little Fish.

Grizzard was closeted his whole life. When he died in 2007, of lung cancer, he was survived by his long-time partner, a man named William Tynan. One of his very last roles was in Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only, where he played a fashion designer who becomes a gay activist, working with Christine Baranski. So I don’t know how closeted he really was at the very end. Grizzard was 79 years old.

George Grizzard is buried in Washington Cemetery on the Green, Washington, Connecticut.

If you would like this series to visit other winners of the Tony’s Best Actor award, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Sidney Blackmer, who won in 1950 for Come Back, Little Sheba, is in Salisbury, North Carolina. Tom Ewell, who won in 1953 for The Seven Year Itch, is in Southampton, New York. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.