George Grizzard

George Cooper Grizzard Jr. (April 1, 1928 – October 2, 2007) was an American actor born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina and raised in Washington, D.C. Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades, he earned a Tony Award, a Grammy Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2002.

Grizzard developed an early interest in performance during his school years in Washington, serving as president of the drama club at Woodrow Wilson High School. He went on to study advertising and drama at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After graduating, he returned to Washington to work in advertising while also appearing in amateur productions. His professional acting career began in 1950 at Washington's Arena Stage, where he took part in some of the theater's earliest productions and earned his first leading role in Dark of the Moon. He subsequently traveled to New York for stage work and studied with Sanford Meisner, Philip Burton, and Alan Schneider. His stage debut had come earlier, in 1944, when he appeared as the Miner in The Corn Is Green.

Grizzard made his Broadway debut in 1955 in The Desperate Hours, playing Hank Griffith, the younger brother of a character portrayed by Paul Newman. The role earned him a Theatre World Award in 1957. He went on to appear in The Disenchanted in 1958, Face of a Hero in 1960, and Big Fish, Little Fish in 1961. A significant association with the work of playwright Edward Albee defined much of his stage career. In 1962, he was part of the original Broadway cast of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, playing Nick alongside Melinda Dillon as Honey, a young couple drawn into the volatile world of the warring spouses portrayed by Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill. The cast recording of that production earned Grizzard and his colleagues a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.

Beginning in 1963, Grizzard joined the founding company of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, a group that also included Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn. He played the title role in the Guthrie's inaugural production of Hamlet alongside Tandy and appeared in numerous productions during the theater's first two seasons, including Henry V, Three Sisters, and Saint Joan.

His Broadway credits also included You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, The Creation of the World and Other Business, The Glass Menagerie, The Country Girl, The Royal Family, California Suite, and Man and Superman. He appeared in the 1996 revival of A Delicate Balance and the 2005 revival of Seascape, with his Broadway work extending from 1955 through 2005. His performance in A Delicate Balance brought him the 1996 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

On film, Grizzard played an unscrupulous United States Senator in Advise and Consent in 1962 and appeared alongside Paul Newman in From the Terrace in 1960. Later film roles included the Western Comes a Horseman with Jane Fonda in 1978 and the Neil Simon comedy Seems Like Old Times in 1980. His television work was equally extensive, encompassing guest appearances on The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Rawhide, Hawaii Five-O, The Golden Girls, The Cosby Show, and Murder, She Wrote, among others. During the 1990s he recurred on Law & Order as defense attorney Arthur Gold. He portrayed President John Adams in the Emmy Award-winning PBS miniseries The Adams Chronicles, produced by WNET, and in 1980 won a Primetime Emmy Award for his work in The Oldest Living Graduate. He also starred as reporter Richard Larsen in The Deliberate Stranger, a television film about serial killer Ted Bundy.

Grizzard died in Manhattan on October 2, 2007, from complications of lung cancer. His surviving partner was William Tynan.