Fredric March (1897-1975) in his matinee idol days. Fredric March was born 124 years ago today; an actor whose final Broadway appearance was in 1962’s Gideon, by Paddy Chayefsky. Fifty-nine years is a long time and there are not many around anymore who can recall March’s sterling stage work in a career that spanned forty-two years on Broadway. But due to his more than eighty films between 1929 and 1973, his legacy is secure as an actor of wide-ranging skill. I was first expos

Shirley Booth (1898-1992). Shirley Booth was born on this date one-hundred-and-twenty-three years ago and retired from acting in 1974 at the age of seventy-six. Happily, I was fortunate enough as a young teenager to have seen her in two shows prior to that date: a play and a musical, which came for her at the tail end of a fifty-year stage career. The first was Look to the Lilies, a musical version of the 1963 film Lilies of the Field, with Booth as a nun who enlists the help

Colleen Dewhurst (1924-1991). Colleen Dewhurst won two Tony Awards (nominated eight times) and four Emmys (thirteen nominations) with two Emmys awarded her for two different performances on the same night in 1989, a rare achievement. She is considered by those who saw her on stage over the course of forty years one of America’s great theatre actresses. And though she made a number of films, few of them exploited her talents the way plays could. There were many television role

I can’t help it. Even though the Tonys have all but vanished off the radar due to the 2020 ceremony being postponed fifteen months until September 26th (eight weeks away), I still have them on the brain. And today’s thought that occurred to me is that for all the brilliant roles the Bard has provided, very few actors in the seventy-three year history of the Tonys have ever won for playing in a Shakespeare comedy or drama. Let me count the ways. First off, it should be acknowl