| re: Hiram Sherman - 2 Tony Awards for supporting actor in a musical - any info on them and him? | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 03:56 am EDT 05/23/18 | |
| In reply to: Hiram Sherman - 2 Tony Awards for supporting actor in a musical - any info on them and him? - PlayWiz 09:27 pm EDT 05/22/18 | |
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| He sings one of my all-time favorite recordings of anything — "When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba," from the Victor Showtime disc dedicated to The Little Shows. He can be seen in one of his Broadway roles in the film version of Mary, Mary, in which he'd been a replacement on Broadway. He was a beloved character actor, nicknamed "Chubby" by his colleagues. I have never read a bad review for him. He did a wide range of roles, including a number of Shakespeare comic roles at Stratford, Connecticut, as well as other places. A credit you may not find for him is playing Berenger in Ionesco's The Killer Off-Broadway in 1960. I'm not sure but I think he may have ended his career by personal choice. He's written about in Don Dunn's The Making of No, No, Nanette, which he left during the out-of-town tryout from what seems to have been a combination of unhappiness and illness (perhaps brought on, at least in part, by the stress of the constant changes, the general chaos, and the infighting and nastiness on the creative team). He announced he was leaving because of illness, then announced that he was coming back, insisting on going on that evening, and then seemed generally disoriented onstage (all according to the Dunn book). Not too long after Nanette, he went to the Shaw Festival for Tonight at 8:30. And then he did an odd mini-tour that started at the Goodman, where he'd started his career in the 1920s, of the Marguerite Duras play L'Amante anglaise, which had been produced under the title A Place Without Doors (as the French title is an untranslatable pun) at the Long Wharf and then, depending on your point of view, either on or Off Broadway at what was then called the Stairway Theatre in December 1970 for a month's run. The cast at Long Wharf and the Stairway had been Mildred Dunnock, Richard Dysart (playing Dunnock's husband) and Alvin Epstein. For the odd tour later in 1971, which after the Goodman played a few one-night stands at colleges and Jewish centers, Sherman replaced Dysart. This is the last credit I have ever been able to find for him. Odd to go in a few months from No, No, Nanette to Marguerite Duras, but he was that kind of actor. He lived another seventeen-and-a-half years. Maybe he stopped because he was having trouble learning lines or perhaps he suffered from a nonfatal but debilitating disease. He does seem to have been genuinely ill when he left Nanette, but a few months later he was working again, and then he stopped. No obituary I can find talks about this. They're all very short. He also worked in London, playing Jeff in Brigadoon and later in the Anne of Green Gables musical and maybe in some other productions. His second Tony win was a rare case of a Tony going to an actor who was no longer in a production that was still running. He had left How Now Dow Jones as quickly as he could, apparently out of unhappiness from having to share stage with Brenda Vaccaro, whose working methods he found uncongenial, at least according to Marlyn Mason in a Peter Filichia column some years back. He went immediately to the Goodman for A Flea in Her Ear. I think he was out of How Now even before the nominations were announced. Oddly, two actors won Tonys in 1968 for shows that they had left but that were still running, but Martin Balsam had played 11 months or so in You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, which had opened too late for the 1967 Tonys. Sherman left How Now after three months or so. Here's a link to the Filichia interview, which, at least on my Mac, is showing up in a kind of screwy way. Sherman is not discussed at length in the interview. I'm posting it really so that no one will think I'm making it up. :) |
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| Link | How Now, Marlyn Mason? |
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