George Furth

George Furth, born George Schweinfurth on December 14, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois, was an American actor, playwright, and librettist who worked on Broadway from 1961 to 1996. The son of George and Evelyn Schweinfurth, he was of German and Irish ancestry and was raised as a Christian Scientist. He earned a Bachelor of Science in speech from Northwestern University in 1954 and later completed a master's degree at Columbia University. He became a life member of the Actors Studio.

Furth made his Broadway debut as a performer in the 1961 play A Cook for Mr. General, with the musical Hot Spot following two years later. His Broadway credits as a writer and performer span productions including Company, Merrily We Roll Along, Getting Away with Murder, The Act, and the play Precious. His most celebrated writing achievement was the book for Company, a musical created in collaboration with Stephen Sondheim, for which Furth received both the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical in 1971 and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book in 1970. He and Sondheim also collaborated on Merrily We Roll Along and the drama Getting Away with Murder. Among his other plays are Twigs, The Supporting Cast, and Precious Sons, and he wrote the book for The Act, the Kander and Ebb musical. Later in his career, Furth wrote lyrics for a musical revue with composer Doug Katsaros. Developed with San Francisco director Mike Ward, the piece premiered at the New Conservatory Theatre Centre in San Francisco during the summer of 2004 as a Pre-U.S. Tour Workshop Production under the title The End, and was subsequently reworked under the titles Last Call and Happy Hour.

Furth began his television career in 1962 and became a recognizable presence in situation comedies throughout the 1960s, making guest appearances on I Dream of Jeannie, That Girl, Green Acres, The Monkees, Batman, Tammy, The Odd Couple, Love American Style, and F Troop. A performance in an episode of McHale's Navy drew the attention of producer Edward Montagne, which led to a recurring featured role in Montagne's McHale's Navy spinoff Broadside, where Furth played the commander's ambitious adjutant. He also held a continuing role in the short-lived 1976 series The Dumplings, and appeared in character roles on Bonanza, Adam-12, and Little House on the Prairie. In the 1980 television film The Scarlett O'Hara War, he portrayed director George Cukor. He adapted his play Twigs as a 1975 television production starring Carol Burnett. In 1990 he contributed voice work to several episodes of the Hanna-Barbera animated series The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda, and his television work continued into the late 1990s with appearances on Murphy Brown, L.A. Law, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, and Murder She Wrote, among others.

His film appearances included The Boston Strangler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Myra Breckinridge, Blazing Saddles, Shampoo, Oh God!, The Cannonball Run, The Man with Two Brains, and Bulworth. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid he played a railroad employee aboard the train car containing the safe that Butch and his gang rob twice. In Blazing Saddles he appeared as one of the agitated townspeople, in Shampoo as a bank officer handling a loan request from Warren Beatty's character, and in Oh God! as a newspaper editor who declines to publicize John Denver's character's claims of divine communication. In The Cannonball Run he played a character named Arthur J. Foyt, a name confused with that of racing driver A. J. Foyt.

Furth was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play for Precious Sons. He died on August 11, 2008, at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 75.