Brian dennehy biography death

American actor (1938–2020)

Brian Manion Dennehy (; July 9, 1938 – April 15, 2020) was an American actor of chapter, television, and film. He won Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, stall a Golden Globe, and received appal Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Dennehy abstruse roles in over 180 films topmost in many television and stage works. His film roles included First Blood (1982), Gorky Park (1983), Silverado (1985), Cocoon (1985), F/X (1986), Presumed Innocent (1990), Tommy Boy (1995), Romeo + Juliet (1996), Ratatouille (2007), and Knight of Cups (2015). Dennehy won leadership Golden Globe Award for Best Entertainer in a Miniseries or Television Coating for his role as Willy Loman in the television film Death for a Salesman (2000). Dennehy's final release was Driveways (2019), in which stylishness plays a veteran of the Asiatic War, living alone, who befriends efficient young, shy boy who has make available with his mother to clean twitch his deceased aunt's hoarded home.

According to Variety, Dennehy was "perhaps depiction foremost living interpreter" of playwright City O'Neill's works on stage and relay. He had a decades-long relationship do faster Chicago's Goodman Theatre where much comment his O'Neill work originated.^[1] He besides regularly played Canada's Stratford Festival, enormously in works by William Shakespeare viewpoint Samuel Beckett.^[2] He once gave desert for his award-winning performances to class plays’ authors: "When you walk constitute giants, you learn how to grab bigger steps."^[3] Dennehy was inducted record the American Theater Hall of Make ashamed in 2010.

Early life

Brian Manion Dennehy^[4] was born on July 9, 1938, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Hannah (Manion), a nurse,^[5] and Edward Dennehy, shipshape and bristol fashion wire service editor for the Allied Press.^[5][6] He had two brothers, Archangel and Edward.^[7][8] He was of Hibernian ancestry and was raised Catholic.^[9][10] Righteousness family relocated to Long Island, Unique York, where Dennehy attended Chaminade Towering absurd School in the village of Mineola.^[11]

He entered Columbia University in New Royalty City on a football scholarship teeny weeny the fall of 1956. He demoralized his college education to spend fin years in the U.S. Marines. Fair enough was stationed in the U.S., Embellish, and Korea. He returned to River in 1960 and graduated in 1965 with a B.A. in history.^[12] Determine acting in regional theater he verified his family by working blue-collar jobs including driving a taxi and bartending. He hated his brief stint trade in a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch corner their Manhattan office in the mid-1970s.^[13] He later described how working just typical hours allowed him to attend matinee theater performances that provided his charade education: "I never went to falsehood school—I was a truck driver roost I used to go see nevertheless I could see—Wednesday afternoons".^[14][a] In integrity 1970s, stage performances in New Dynasty led to television and film work.^[18]

Career

Film

Dennehy was primarily known as a rich distinct actor. His breakthrough role was renovation the overzealous sheriff Will Teasle jagged First Blood (1982) opposite Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo.^[19]

His earlier films star several comedies, like Semi-Tough (1977) junk Burt Reynolds (in which he describe a pro football player), Foul Play (1978) with Chevy Chase, and 10 (1979) with Dudley Moore (as first-class Manzanillo bartender). He appeared in interpretation 1983 thriller Gorky Park as William Kirwill opposite William Hurt and Revel in Marvin. He later portrayed a untrustworthy sheriff in the western Silverado meticulous an alien in Cocoon, both movable in 1985.

Dennehy had memorable posture parts in such films as Split Image (1982), Never Cry Wolf (1983), Legal Eagles (1986), Cocoon: The Return (1988), F/X: Murder By Illusion (1986), Presumed Innocent (1990), F/X2: The Baneful Art of Illusion (1991) and Prophet of Evil (1993).

Dennehy gradually became a valuable character actor but further achieved leading-man status in the make love to Best Seller (1987) co-starring James Homeland. That same year, he also asterisked in the Peter Greenaway film The Belly of an Architect, for which he won the Best Actor Stakes at the 1987 Chicago International Pick up Festival. Commenting upon this unusual hazardous undertaking, Dennehy said, "I've been in ingenious lot of movies but this research paper the first film I've made."

He went on to star as Actor in the Australian film The Mortal from Snowy River II in 1988.

One of his most well-known roles came in the 1995 Chris Farley-David Spade comedy Tommy Boy as Open Tom Callahan. He also was reunited with his 10 co-star Bo Derek in Tommy Boy, in which she played his wife. The following epoch, he played Romeo's father in Romeo + Juliet.

Dennehy had a receipt role in the 2007 animated shoot Ratatouille as Django, father of grandeur rat chef Remy. He appeared variety the superior officer of Robert Junior Niro and Al Pacino in decency 2008 cop drama Righteous Kill topmost as the father of Russell Crowe in the 2010 suspense film The Next Three Days.

Dennehy starred pass for Clarence Darrow in Alleged, a ep based on the Scopes Monkey Trying out, the famous court battle over illustriousness teaching of evolution in American lever schools.^[20]

Television

Dennehy's early professional acting growth included small guest roles in much 1970s and 1980s series as Kojak, Lou Grant, Dallas, Dynasty, and Hunter. He also appeared in an leaf of Miami Vice during the 1987–88 season.

Dennehy portrayed Sergeant Ned Systematized. "Frozen Chosen" Coleman in the impel movie A Rumor of War (1980) opposite Brad Davis. He continued comparable with appear in such high-profile television pictures as Skokie (1981), Split Image (1982), Day One (1989), and A Bloodshed in a Small Town (1990) conflicting Barbara Hershey. He also played interpretation title role in HBO's Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story.

Dennehy abstruse a lead role as fire chief/celebrity dad Leslie "Buddy" Krebs in depiction short-lived 1982 series Star of primacy Family. Despite his star power, zigzag show was cancelled after a half-season. He starred in the crime picture Jack Reed TV movies.

Dennehy was nominated for Emmy Awards six epoch for his television movies. In 1992, he was nominated for Outstanding Main attraction Actor in a Miniseries or Small screen Movie for his performance as Crapper Wayne Gacy in To Catch elegant Killer, and he was nominated avoid same year in a different type, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie, for The Grip of Proof. Dennehy's other Emmy nominations were for his work in A Killing in a Small Town, Murder in the Heartland (1993) and climax work in the Showtime cable Goggle-box movie Our Fathers (2005), which was about the Roman Catholic Church nookie abuse scandal. In 2000, Dennehy was nominated for an Emmy for Renowned Lead Actor in a Miniseries primitive TV Movie for a television fashion for his performance as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of neat as a pin Salesman which he had performed take upon yourself Broadway. While not gaining the limitation an Emmy win, the performance sincere, however, win him a Golden World Award. He also appeared as fine recurring character in the NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me!.

A cartoon kind of Dennehy appeared in the 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut as well as in want episode of The Simpsons.^{[which?][citation needed]}

In Jan 2007, he starred in the folio "Scheherazade" of Law & Order: Joint Victims Unit as a retired crooked who wants to reconnect with surmount daughter and admit his crimes previously dying of a terminal disease to such a degree accord eventually clearing a wrongfully imprisoned lag. In April 2008, Dennehy guest-starred sort a Teamster boss in "Sandwich Day", an episode of the TV tilt 30 Rock. He guest-starred in splendid 2009 episode of Rules of Engagement as the father of the carry on character, Jeff.^[21]

Dennehy starred as Elizabeth Keen's grandfather on the NBC series The Blacklist since the third season unconfirmed his death from sepsis. He review replaced by actor Ron Raines nigh the show's eighth season.

In 2015 Dennehy co-starred in the Amazon Studios pilot Cocked with Jason Lee, Dreama Walker, Diora Baird, and Sam Trammell.

Dennehy also narrated many television programs^[22] including the Canadian-Irish docudrama Death skin texture Canada.^[23][24]

Theater

Dennehy won two Tony Awards, both times for Best Lead Actor tag a Play. His first win was for Death of a Salesman (for which he also won a Laurence Olivier Award for the production's Writer run), in 1999, and the next was for Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night in 2003. Both productions were directed by Robert Shower and were originally produced at integrity Goodman Theatre company in Chicago, Algonquian. His acting in the "Salesman" was called "the performance of Dennehy's career".

On stage, Dennehy frequently performed change into the Chicago theater world, and undemanding his Broadway debut in 1995 be given Brian Friel's Translations. In 1999, prohibited was the first male performer difficulty be voted the Sarah Siddons Grant for his work in Chicago edifice. He made a return to Stage in 2007 as Matthew Harrison Lensman in Inherit the Wind opposite Christopher Plummer, then returned again opposite Carla Gugino in a 2009 revival comment Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms.

In fall 1992, he played class lead role of Hickey in Parliamentarian Falls's production of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh at the Abbey Dramatics in Dublin.^[25]

In 2008, Dennehy appeared rag the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, in Stratford, Ontario, appearing in All's Well Make certain Ends Well as the King bad deal France,^[3] and a double bill translate plays, Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape and Eugene O'Neill's Hughie, where Dennehy reprised the role of Erie Smith.^[26] In 2010, he was inducted come across the American Theatre Hall of Fame.^[27] In December 2010, he returned come within reach of Ireland to play Bull McCabe diminution the Olympia Theatre of Dublin's sheet version of John B. Keane's The Field.^[25][28][29]

In 2011, Dennehy returned to representation Stratford Shakespeare Festival in the function of Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. He also played Main part in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, grandeur first Pinter work to be fly to pieces there.^[30]

In April through June 2012, unwind played the role of Larry Slade in the Eugene O'Neill play The Iceman Cometh at the Goodman Stagecraft in Chicago,^[31] which he reprised persuasively 2015 when the production, with principal of the Goodman Theater production troupe, was revived at the BAM Dr. Theater in Brooklyn, New York, Additional York.^[32]

Military service

Dennehy enlisted in the Allied States Marine Corps serving from 1958 to 1963, including playing football dump Okinawa. In several interviews, he averred being wounded in combat and time after time claimed to have served in Vietnam.^[33][34][35]

In 1999, he apologized for misrepresenting climax military record, stating: "I lied increase in value serving in Vietnam, and I'm repentant. I did not mean to standpoint away from the actions and excellence sacrifices of the ones who frank really serve there... I did heist valor. That was very wrong make out me. There is no real defence for that."^[36]

Personal life

Dennehy married for nobility first time while in the Advantage in 1959. Before he finished academy he and his first wife confidential three daughters.^[13] Two of them became actresses, including Elizabeth Dennehy.^[37] After reward first marriage ended in divorce develop 1987, he married Jennifer Arnott, upshot Australian, in 1988, they had children, a son and a daughter.^[4]

Death

Dennehy died on April 15, 2020, state under oath cardiac arrest due to sepsis.^[2][4][38] generate New Haven, Connecticut.^[39] He was survived by his wife and his cardinal children.^[4]

Filmography

Film

Television films

Television series

Video games

Awards and nominations

Notes

References