José [Vicente] Ferrer
Ferrer, José [Vicente] (1912–92), actor and director. Born in Puerto Rico but educated in New York and at Princeton, the rather well‐built, heavy‐featured, rich‐voiced performer made his professional debut in 1934 in a series of melodramas performed on a show boat cruising Long Island Sound. Broadway first saw him as a policeman in A Slight Case of Murder (1935), then he won critical attention in the roles of the gadfly Lippincott in Spring Dance (1936) and the meddling cadet Dan Crawford in Brother Rat (1936). Important supporting assignments followed as Jesse James associate Billy Gashade in Missouri Legend (1938), the white St. Julien in the black drama Mamba's Daughters (1939), and the poet Victor d'Alcala in Key Largo (1939). Ferrer triumphed as Lord Fancourt Babberley in a revival of Charley's Aunt (1940) and subsequently starred in two more highly praised revivals, playing Iago to Paul Robeson's Othello in 1943 and the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac (1946). “His Cyrano,” Brooks Atkinson noted, “has sardonic wit, a strutting style, a bombastic manner of speech and withal a shyness and modesty.” In 1948 Ferrer was appointed general director of the New York City Theatre Company at the City Center, producing and appearing in Volpone, Angel Street, a bill of Chekhov one‐act plays, The Alchemist, S. S. Glencairn, and The Insect Comedy. Other memorable performances of the period include Oliver Erwenter in The Silver Whistle (1949), frantic producer Oscar Jaffe in a revival of Twentieth Century (1950), and mental patient Jim Downs in The Shrike (1952), a play he also produced and directed. In 1953 he revived the work at the City Center, also playing in revivals of Charley's Aunt and Richard III, and as the Prince Regent in The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963). Thereafter, he appeared largely as replacements for original stars or in productions outside New York. He also directed and occasionally produced plays, including Strange Fruit (1945); Stalag 17 (1951); The Fourposter (1951); The Chase (1952); My Three Angels (1953); Oh, Captain! (1958), for which he was also co‐librettist; and The Andersonville Trial (1959).






