George Grizzard

Grizzard, George (b. 1928), actor. The boyish‐looking actor, who specialized in wimpy or seemingly wimpy characters, was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. As a teen he acted in summer stock, then joined the Arena Stage in 1952. Grizzard played important roles on Broadway in The Desperate Hours (1955), The Happiest Millionaire (1956), and Big Fish, Little Fish (1962) but really called attention to himself as Nick, the puzzled young professor, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962). He portrayed a variety of leading characters in two evenings of one‐acters, You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running (1967) and California Suite (1976). Between Broadway appearances he worked with major Off‐Broadway and regional companies. Grizzard's later appearances include John Tanner in Man and Superman (1978), college professor Henry Harper in Another Antigone (1988), and the questioning Tobias in A Delicate Balance (1996).

• Born: Apr 01, 1928 in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina
• Died: Oct 01, 2007 in New York, New York
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '60s-'90s
• Major Genres: Drama, Crime
• Career Highlights: Attica, Bachelor Party, Comes a Horseman
• First Major Screen Credit: The Twilight Zone: The Chaser (1960)

Biography

Born in South Carolina, George Grizzard was raised in Washington DC, then went back to his original corner of the world to study radio broadcasting at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Grizzard hoped to get into the production end of radio upon graduation, but instead landed a frustrating job with an advertising agency. He then switched his interests to acting; he'd already played a few roles in college productions, and thought he might as well get paid for his hobby. After a season's worth of stock, he got his first professional job at the Arena Stage in Washington. He moved to New York, studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and in 1954 received his Equity card while appearing in an off-Broadway production of School for Scandal. The same year, he was cast in the Broadway melodrama The Desperate Hours, earning the Variety Critics Poll's "Best Actor" award for his performance. Other long-running Broadway assignments followed, including The Happiest Millionaire and The Disenchanted.

Grizzard also made quite a few TV appearances during this period, both "live" and on film; he's the young Romeo who slips his girlfriend an all-too-powerful love potion in the 1960 Twilight Zone episode "The Chaser." In 1960, Grizzard made his first film appearance in From the Terrace; though his subsequent film work was sporadic, it was always high-profile, most notably his portrayal of the Nixonish Senator Van Ackerman in the 1962 Otto Preminger production Advise and Consent (this role launched Grizzard on a cinematic political career, embracing such "offices" as the Mayor in 1980's Seems Like Old Times and the U.S. President in 1982's Wrong Is Right). In 1961, Grizzard helped found the APA repertory in New York. He also spent a season with the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, where he starred in the rarely performed uncut version of Hamlet--his first-ever Shakespearean role. In 1976, Grizzard was Emmy-nominated for his portrayal of John Adams in PBS' The Adams Chronicles, and in 1980 he won the award for his work in the live network-cast The Oldest Living Graduate. In 1989, George Grizzard accepted his first regular TV-series role, playing unctuous morning-show news commentator Douglas Hayward in Studio 5-B.

Grizzard died at age 79 of complications from lung cancer, in October 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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