Tony Tanner

Tony Tanner (27 July 1932 – 8 September 2020) was a British actor, director, and choreographer born in Middlesex, England, whose career spanned stage, film, and television across both the United Kingdom and the United States. He trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where he graduated with the Douglas Cup, presented to him by Margaret Rutherford. Following his formal training, he spent five years working in northern repertory companies, taking on a wide range of parts that included Saint Peter and the front end of a cow in a British pantomime.

Tanner built his early reputation in intimate revues in London's West End, among them an appearance in a sketch written by a then-unknown Harold Pinter. He later appeared opposite Pinter himself in The Birthday Party, playing the patsy in the production. His British television work included a portrayal of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream alongside Benny Hill's Bottom, and he made numerous other appearances in plays and variety programs. In 1964 he starred in Strictly for the Birds, and his stage work in this period culminated in taking over the lead role of Littlechap in Stop the World – I Want to Get Off in the West End from the show's author, Anthony Newley. Tanner subsequently reprised that role in the Warner Brothers film adaptation.

His Broadway career began in 1965 with Half a Sixpence, in which he assumed the lead role, and he remained in the United States thereafter. He went on to star in No Sex Please, We're British opposite Maureen O'Sullivan, and appeared in the play Sherlock Holmes alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company. He also starred in George M!, bringing his total Broadway acting credits between 1965 and 1974 to four productions. Away from Broadway, Tanner played Iago opposite Robert Guillaume's Othello at the National Sylvan Theater and performed comic roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with a number of opera companies.

Tanner later developed a significant career as a director and choreographer, staging and choreographing five productions on Broadway. His work on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat earned him two Tony Award nominations in 1982, one for Best Direction of a Musical and one for Best Choreography. His 1981 production of A Taste of Honey, starring Amanda Plummer, received a Tony Award nomination for Best Revival in the same season. He also directed numerous Off-Broadway productions and maintained a theatre company in Los Angeles dedicated to presenting his own written works.

Among his later projects, Tanner created a one-man show titled Charlatan, in which he portrayed Ballets Russes founder Sergei Diaghilev. The production was a success at the New York International Fringe Festival and subsequently traveled to the York Theatre Royal and London's King's Head Theatre in 2010. Tanner was with his partner and eventual husband, Henry Selvitelle, for fifty years. He died at his home in Los Angeles in September 2020 at the age of 88.