Fred Applegate

Frederick Applegate, born February 20, 1953, is an American actor, singer, and dancer who grew up in Maplewood and South Orange, New Jersey. He attended Columbia High School, where he was a member of the original Ultimate Frisbee team, and later graduated from Northwestern University. His Broadway career spans from 1995 to 2018.

Applegate originated several roles on Broadway, including Inspector Kemp and The Blind Hermit in Young Frankenstein (2007), the Monsignor in Sister Act (2011), and Father Jack O'Brien in The Last Ship, which opened in October 2014. He has also taken on replacement and subsequent productions of established shows, playing Max Bialystock in The Producers on Broadway in 2003 and reprising the role in the West End production in 2005, having previously appeared in the first national tour as Franz Leibkind. Additional Broadway credits include M. Dindon/M. Renaud in La Cage aux Folles (2010), Max Detweiler in The Sound of Music (1998), the Wizard in Wicked, Constable Joe in Tuck Everlasting, and Uncle Patrick Carney in The Ferryman.

Beyond Broadway, Applegate played Cogsworth in the national tour of Beauty and the Beast and Moonface Martin in the national tour of Anything Goes, which launched in October 2012. He appeared Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater in the 2009 musical Happiness, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, and performed the role of Panisse in the Encores! staged concert of Fanny in February 2010. In December 2014, he participated in a reading of the new musical Presto Change-O, presented by the Barrington Stage Company Musical Theatre Lab and directed by Marc Bruni. He was also a member of the resident acting company at the Guthrie Theatre for three years. In 2022, he played Arvide Abernathy in Guys and Dolls at the Kennedy Center.

Applegate's work extends into television, film, and voice performance. He has guest starred in more than 150 television episodes, appearing on programs including Seinfeld, Murphy Brown, Newhart, Will & Grace, Malcolm in the Middle, ER, Growing Pains, Cosby, and FM, among others. He portrayed the Pointy-Haired Boss in the unaired live-action pilot of Dilbert. His film credits include Stuart Saves His Family (1995), Georgia Rule, and The Producers. As a narrator, his voice has been featured in documentary programming for PBS, National Geographic, Disney, Bravo, and A&E, and in 2000 he narrated the AMC documentary The Unknown Peter Sellers.