Bert Lahr

Bert Lahr, born Irving Lahrheim on August 13, 1895, in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan's Upper East Side, was an American actor and comedian whose career spanned Broadway, film, and television. The son of Jacob Lahrheim, an upholsterer, and Augusta Bessen, both German-Jewish immigrants, Lahr attended P.S. 77 and Morris High School before leaving school at age 15 to pursue performing. He subsequently served in the U.S. Navy during World War I, reaching the rank of seaman second class.

Lahr began appearing in minor vaudeville roles at age 14 and eventually earned top billing working for the Columbia Amusement Company. His Broadway debut came on November 28, 1927, in Harry Delmar's Revels, and he went on to appear on Broadway continuously through 1964. His first major stage success was the role of a prizefighter in Hold Everything! during the 1928–29 season. Additional musical productions followed, among them Flying High in 1930, Florenz Ziegfeld's Hot-Cha! in 1932, and The Show Is On in 1936, in which he co-starred with Beatrice Lillie. In 1939, he appeared alongside Ethel Merman in DuBarry Was a Lady, playing Louis Blore. He later starred as Skid in the Broadway revival of Burlesque from 1946 to 1948, and played multiple roles, including Queen Victoria, in the original Broadway musical Two on the Aisle from 1951 to 1952.

Lahr's Broadway credits also included the farce Hotel Paradiso, the revue The Girls Against the Boys, and S. J. Perelman's play The Beauty Part, in which he appeared in 1962. He played Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the American Shakespeare Festival in 1960, a performance that earned him the Best Shakespearean Actor of the Year Award, and he had previously toured with a production of the same play in the 1950s. His Broadway career culminated with Foxy, an adaptation of Volpone, for which he received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 1964.

Among his most significant Broadway appearances was the American premiere of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 1956, which began at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, Florida, where Lahr played Estragon opposite Tom Ewell's Vladimir. That initial production was poorly received, with audiences leaving during performances and critics responding unfavorably. Lahr's son John later attributed the difficulties in part to directorial choices, including restrictions on Lahr's movement and a misleading promotion of the play as light comedy. Lahr subsequently reprised the role in a Broadway run directed by Herbert Berghof, who had consulted with Beckett in Europe. With greater freedom of movement and revised staging, the production was a success and received enthusiastic audience response.

Lahr's most widely recognized role came in film rather than on stage. He was cast on July 25, 1938, to play the Cowardly Lion — and his Kansas counterpart Zeke — in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1939 adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. The lion costume, constructed from real lion fur, was reported to be extremely uncomfortable under the high-intensity Technicolor lighting. Lahr contributed ad-libbed comedic lines to the role, and his scenes frequently required multiple takes because fellow cast members, including Judy Garland, broke into laughter. The Cowardly Lion is the only character in the film to perform two solo songs. An original costume worn by Lahr in the production is held in the Comisar Collection, and in June 2013, his original reading script for the film was appraised at an insurance value of $150,000 on PBS's Antiques Roadshow. Lahr had made his feature film debut earlier, in the 1931 adaptation of Flying High, reprising the stage role he had originated.

On television, Lahr appeared in NBC's live production of the Cole Porter musical Let's Face It in 1954, the 1964 Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Fantasticks, and television adaptations of Androcles and the Lion and School for Wives in 1956. He played Moonface Martin in a television version of Anything Goes alongside Ethel Merman and Frank Sinatra, and in 1959 portrayed Mr. O'Malley in an adaptation of Barnaby for the anthology series General Electric Theater. He also made occasional appearances as the mystery guest on What's My Line, including an appearance on December 30, 1956, and in 1963 appeared as Go-Go Garrity in an episode of NBC's medical drama The Eleventh Hour. He was additionally featured in a long-running series of Lay's potato chips commercials as part of the "Betcha can't eat just one" campaign.

In his personal life, Lahr was married twice. His first wife, dancer and comedienne Mercedes Delpino, developed mental health problems that required hospitalization. His second wife was Mildred Schroeder. He had three children: a son, Herbert Edward, born in 1928, with Delpino, and a son, John, born in 1941, and a daughter, Jane, born in 1943, with Schroeder. John Lahr became a drama critic and authored Notes on a Cowardly Lion, a book about his father. Bert Lahr died on December 4, 1967.