In Memoriam Audiences probably know Phil Bruns ’56 best as the father in the 1970s cult television series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, in which he played George Shumway, a rubberfaced factory worker who could never quite understand what was going on with his daughter Mary, or with the other societal changes of the 1970s. Before he began working in television, Phil had a distinguished career on the stage. After graduating from Yale School of Drama, he studied at the Old Vic Theatre School and began acting regularly offBroadway in such plays as The Butter and Egg Man, The Moths, A Dream out of Time, and Spitting Image. Phil won an Obie Award in 1964 for the off-Broadway production of Mr. Simian, an exploration of the misery of the human condition, in which he played the title role of an ape that morphs into a human. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 in the political drama The Deputy, played Pistol in the 1969 American National Theatre and Academy production of Henry V starring Len Cariou, and was in the 1972 revival of Lysistrata. From his work on the stage, Phil went on to appear in more than 40 movies and 60 television shows. He was a regular on Jackie Gleason’s comedy-variety show American Scene Magazine and did regular guest work on both dramatic and comedic television series, including such classics as Route 66, The Defenders, Sanford and Son, M*A*S*H, Kojak, Naked City, Barney Miller, Maude, and Seinfeld (he was the first actor to play Jerry Seinfeld’s father). His films include The Out-of-Towners, Nickelodeon, The Stunt Man, Flashdance, and The Great Waldo Pepper. Phil Bruns was born on May 2, 1931 in Pipestone, MN, and died on February 8, 2012 in Los Angeles at the age of 80. He is survived by his wife, actress Laurie Franks.
Character Actor William Duell William Duell ’52 was a character actor whose face, though not necessarily his name, was familiar to generations of television, film, and stage audiences. Born on August 30, 1923 in Corinth, NY, Bill acted in his first play, Arsenic and Old Lace, at Green Mountain College in Vermont. Following service in the Navy during WWII, he finished his studies at Illinois Wesleyan University, then earned a master’s degree from Yale School of Drama. Bill’s stage career in New York began in the legendary 1950s Theatre de Lys production of Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera. He was also in the Lincoln Center 1976 revival, playing Crook-Finger Jack. He appeared with regularity off-Broadway in such productions as The Memorandum, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, On the Bum, and Comedians, and on Broadway in The Ballad of the Sad Café, Illya Darling, and the original 1969 production of the musical 1776, in which Bill became famous as the only actor who played every performance of the entire run of the show and was never understudied. (He played a different role in the 1997 revival.)
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Bill’s first film appearance was in The Hustler with Paul Newman ’54, lhdh ’88 and Jackie Gleason, followed by roles in Airplane, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Ironweed, In & Out, and The Out-of-Towners. Perhaps his most memorable film role was Sefelt in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. No matter how many film or television roles he played, Bill always came back to the stage. As recently as 1996 he played Erronius in the revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Nathan Lane. In 2000 he was a deluded doctor in The Man Who Came to Dinner. In 2010 he appeared in a one-night-only semi-staged concert reading of Evening Primrose, an early musical by Stephen Sondheim. Bill was also a regular attendee at Yale School of Drama holiday parties. He died on December 22, 2011 at age 88 at his home in Manhattan. He is survived by his wife.
Director and Actor Jonathan Frid Jonathan Frid ’57, the Canadian actor who breathed dynamic life into the character of the sophisticated vampire Barnabas Collins on the 1966–71 daytime gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, died on April 13, 2012 at age 87, just weeks before a feature film remake of the series was released. The vampire, as embodied by Jonathan (and, incidentally, created by Jonathan’s classmate, Ron Sproat ’58) was brooding and remorseful, a new kind of romantic figure on daytime television. Originally conceived to make a few brief guest appearances, his character became so popular—not only with the largely female audience, but also with high school and college students, who saw the show as a camp classic—that he evolved into the central focus and turned the show into a hit whose cult status lives on to this day. Jonathan played Collins as a man tormented by his own nature, racked with guilt over his thirst for blood, and doomed by his own immortality to endure it forever. This interpretation of a vampire was both unconventional and modern, and influenced the way vampires are portrayed in fiction and film today. At the height of the show’s popularity, Jonathan received 5,000 fan letters a week addressed to Barnabas Collins. Two feature films, House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows, were based on the television show. When a contemporary version of Dark Shadows, directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas, was released in May 2012, Jonathan was coaxed out of a long retirement to appear as the old Barnabas confronting the young one portrayed by Depp. After serving in the Canadian Navy during World War II, Jonathan studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Though he made his career as an actor, his degree from Yale School of Drama was in directing. For many years before his breakthrough in Dark Shadows he played roles in theatre and television. After the series ended, Jonathan returned to his roots to do classical stage work, appearing at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, CT. On Broadway he played Richard Scroop, Archbishop of York in Henry IV, Part II, starred in Arsenic and Old Lace, and created three well-received one-man shows. He appeared in the 1973 TV movie
Frid photo from Getty Images
Stage and Television Actor Phil Bruns