Frank Lazarus

Frank Lazarus (4 May 1939 – 14 September 2025) was a British and South African actor, composer, and lyricist born in Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town. His father, Louis, was a wine and brandy merchant, and his mother, Doffie (née Hart), was a teacher and amateur actress. The family was Jewish, and as a child Lazarus sang in the choir of the Muizenberg Shul. He studied law at the University of Cape Town and spent a brief period working in an attorney's office before pursuing a career in the arts. During his years in South Africa he appeared in various stage productions and adapted Beverley Nichols's novel The Tree That Sat Down for the stage. In the mid-1960s he co-wrote the theatrical revue An Evening with Maggie and Frank with actress Maggie Soboil, contributing the music and lyrics; the show toured Australia in July 1968, including performances at the Russell Street Theatre in Melbourne. Lazarus emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1970 and remained there for the rest of his life.

Throughout the 1970s Lazarus worked steadily in London theatre, film, and television. In 1974 he understudied Ben Kingsley in an Athol Fugard play at the Royal Court Theatre. His screen credits from this period include the 1978 feature film Superman, in which he played an Air Force One pilot, and the 1978 BBC television serial Pennies from Heaven. He also appeared in two episodes of EastEnders.

The work that defined Lazarus's career began in 1978, when he was performing at the Greenwood Theatre, playing piano and portraying Erik Satie. It was there that writer and lyricist Dick Vosburgh encountered him, and the two subsequently collaborated on A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine. The production won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and transferred to Broadway, where it ran from 1980 to 1981. Lazarus performed in the show, playing Carlo in both the 1979 London production and the Broadway run, and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Original Score at the 34th Tony Awards in 1980. During the Broadway run, the producers were sued by the heirs of the Marx Brothers, who alleged infringement of their right of publicity; Lazarus and Vosburgh were named as third-party defendants in the case. He later created a one-man piece drawn from his experiences with the production, titled The Hollywood/Ukraine Backers Audition.

Lazarus continued to work in theatre and radio in the decades that followed. Between 1990 and 1992 he starred in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, playing Emmanuel Ravelli — the counterpart to Chico Marx's character — opposite Michael Roberts as Waldorf T. Flywheel. The scripts, rediscovered in 1988 and adapted by Mark Brisenden, were produced by Dirk Maggs and broadcast across three seasons totalling 18 episodes, recorded before a live studio audience. In 1986 his National Theatre work included the role of the Gestapo officer in Jacobowsky and the Colonel. In 1992 he played Maxie Schwartz in June Moon at the Vaudeville on the Strand, and in 1993 he starred as Horace Vandergelder opposite Prunella Scales's Mrs. Dolly Levi in The Matchmaker at the Chichester Festival.

Lazarus died in London on 14 September 2025, at the age of 86.