Norman Lloyd

Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd, 2007
Born	Norman Nathan Lloyd (1914-11-08) November 8, 1914 (age 97) Jersey City, New Jersey, United States
Years active	1932–present
Spouse	Peggy Craven (June 29, 1936–August 30, 2011; her death); 2 children

Norman Nathan Lloyd (born November 8, 1914) is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning roughly eight decades. Lloyd has appeared in over sixty films and television shows. In the 1980s, he gained a new generation of fans for playing Dr. Daniel Auschlander, one of the starring roles on the groundbreaking medical drama, St. Elsewhere.^[1]

Early life and theatre work

Lloyd was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He attended high school and college in New York City and began his acting career in theater, first at Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre in New York, and then joining the original company of the Orson Welles – John Houseman Mercury Theatre. Lloyd had a significant role with the first Mercury Theatre production as Cinna the poet, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1937). The 1938 Broadway role in Everywhere I Roam, as Johnny Appleseed, was selected as one of the ten best Broadway performances of the year. Lloyd was also a featured radio actor, including as part of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater and later in Norman Corwin's The Undecided Molecule.

Lloyd met his wife, actress Peggy Craven, while both were co-starring in Elia Kazan's play Crime.^[2]

Film acting

Lloyd came to Hollywood to play a Nazi spy in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), starting a long friendship and professional association with Hitchcock. After a few more villainous film roles, Lloyd also worked behind the camera as an assistant on Lewis Milestone's Arch of Triumph (1948). A friend of John Garfield, Lloyd appeared with him in He Ran All the Way, Garfield's last film before the Hollywood blacklist ended his film career.

Post-war career

A marginal victim of the blacklist, Lloyd was rescued professionally by Hitchcock, who had previously used the actor in Saboteur and Spellbound (1945). Hitchcock hired Lloyd as an Associate Producer and a Director on his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1958. Previously, Lloyd was the director of the syndicated television series The Adventures of Kit Carson starring Bill Williams.

He continued directing and producing episodic television throughout the 1960s and '70s. He took an unusual role in the Night Gallery episode "A Feast of Blood" as the bearer of a cursed brooch, which he inflicts upon a hapless woman (Sondra Locke) who had spurned his romantic advances. In the 1980s, Lloyd played Dr. Auschlander in the TV drama St. Elsewhere over its six-season run (1982–88). Originally intended for 4 episodes, he stayed on up until the series' demise.^[3] In addition to a lesser-known actor the late Ed Flanders and established actor William Daniels, St. Elsewhere also starred a bunch of unfamiliar stars such as: Ed Begley Jr., Denzel Washington, Stephen Furst, Eric Laneuville, David Morse and Howie Mandel. Howie Mandel, who played Dr. Auschlander's rowdy Orthodox ER resident, Dr. Wayne Fiscus, said about his first meeting with a producer on a groundbreaking show, "When I first met Norman on St. Elsewhere, I mean, I thought he was only going to be a guest on the show 4 times. It was almost obvious to the rest of the cast & Ed [Flanders] to know that he was going to be a full-fledge regular, thanks to massive audiences and an appealing connection that made the show work."^[4] From 1998-2001 he played Dr. Isaac Mentnor in the UPN science fiction drama Seven Days. His numerous TV guest-star appearances include The Joseph Cotten Show, Murder, She Wrote, The Twilight Zone, Wiseguy, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Wings, The Practice and Civil Wars.

He has played in various radio plays for Peggy Webber's California Artists Radio Theater and Yuri Rasovsky's Hollywood Theater of the Ear. His most recent film role was in In Her Shoes (2005). He is the subject of the documentary Who Is Norman Lloyd?, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on September 1, 2007. In 2010, aged 95, he guest-starred in an episode of ABC's Modern Family.^[5] On December 5, 2010 he starred in a one-man show at the Colony Theatre, in Burbank, California, where he spoke of his career and answered questions from the audience, detailing his illustrious and singular path.

His wife of seventy-five years, Peggy, died on August 30, 2011, at the age of 98; the couple had two children.^[2]

Filmography

Cinema

TV

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series
• The Scarecrow (play) (1972 televised version)
• St. Elsewhere as Dr. Daniel Auschlander (1982–1988); TV series – 132 episodes
• Wiseguy TV series
• Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Chase" as Professor Galen (1993)
• Murder, She Wrote TV series
• Seven Days as Dr. Isaac Mentnor (1998–2000) TV series – 36 episodes
• Fail Safe (2000) televised play
• The Practice TV series
• Who is Norman Lloyd?^[6] (documentary, 2007)
• Modern Family (2010)

References

External links

• Norman Lloyd at the Internet Movie Database
• Norman Lloyd at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• BN bio
• Vidiot.com bio and photo
• Stage work
• Archive of American Television: Norman Lloyd
• Who is Norman Lloyd? film website
• The Man Who Fell Off The Statue of Liberty: An Interview with Norman Lloyd (TCM's Movie Morlocks)