Two-Time Award Winner Brian Dennehy Passes Away

Believe it or not, but I have been writing blogs for this website for almost fourteen years now. Most days it is pretty easy to find a subject to write about, especially in March and April when so many shows are opening, and then of course in May, when the award season officially begins. For the past four weeks, I have been posting my blogs not from my office, but from my home. Plus with Broadway being on a hiatus right now, trying to find blog subjects has been difficult most days. When I woke up this morning, I perused the usual theatre websites, something I do pretty much every day. I mean where else would I find out all the latest news right?

By the afternoon, I had decided on my blog subject, and was just about to post it when it was announced that the brilliant actor Brian Dennehy had died. I, like most people my age, probably know him best for his performance in the hilarious 1997 film Tommy Boy, starring the late Chris Farley. The on-screen chemistry between them as father and son was perfect. So you can imagine my surprise two years later, when I heard that he had been hired to play one of the greatest roles in the history of the American theatre. Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller's masterpiece A Death of a Salesman. After all these years of going to the theatre, I should have learned by now to always expect the unexpected, and most importantly never judge a book by it's cover. 

Up until that point, I had never seen a production of Death of a Salesman. Oh sure I had read it many times, as well as performed a scene or two during acting class. But there is nothing like seeing the real thing.Four years later, I also had the privilege of seeing him play family patriarch James Tyrone Sr. in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. And just like with his portrayal of Willy Loman, he went on to win the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Thank you Mr. Dennehy for your talent, and for your amazing body of work that will live on for years to come. You will be missed. Stay safe everyone, and don't forget to look out for each other. Until next time theatre fans.

JWB

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