Zoneboy
12-10-2009, 09:13 PM
Link (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postmortem/2009/12/actor-gene-barry-dies.html)
Not reported by any news outlets yet, but The Washington Post has confirmed the death of actor Gene Barry Dec. 9 in Woodland Hills, Calif., at age 90.
Perhaps not a household name now, but for 20 years Barry was a major TV star as the sharply-dressed lawmen of the series "Bat Masterson" and "Burke's Law." He began his career on Broadway opposite Mae West in "Catherine Was Great" (1944) and starred in the 1953 alien-invasion film "War of the Worlds."
A longtime cabaret and touring stage performer, Mr. Barry played President Richard M. Nixon in a 1982 Atlanta production of "Watergate: A Musical." The next year he originated the Broadway role of a gay night-club owner raising a son in "La Cage aux Folles," a Jerry Herman musical based on a French stage play. Barry got a Tony nomination.
"I'm not playing a homosexual," Mr. Barry told the New York Times. "I'm playing a person who cares deeply about another person. The role is loving another person onstage. It doesn't matter whether it's a man, a woman or a giraffe. It has nothing to do with sexuality, as far as I'm concerned. I play the dignity of the man, his concern for his lover and his concern and love for his son."
Bit of trivia: Barry played a murderous psychiatrist in "Prescription: Murder," the 1968 TV movie that kicked off Peter Falk's career as Lt. Columbo.
Not reported by any news outlets yet, but The Washington Post has confirmed the death of actor Gene Barry Dec. 9 in Woodland Hills, Calif., at age 90.
Perhaps not a household name now, but for 20 years Barry was a major TV star as the sharply-dressed lawmen of the series "Bat Masterson" and "Burke's Law." He began his career on Broadway opposite Mae West in "Catherine Was Great" (1944) and starred in the 1953 alien-invasion film "War of the Worlds."
A longtime cabaret and touring stage performer, Mr. Barry played President Richard M. Nixon in a 1982 Atlanta production of "Watergate: A Musical." The next year he originated the Broadway role of a gay night-club owner raising a son in "La Cage aux Folles," a Jerry Herman musical based on a French stage play. Barry got a Tony nomination.
"I'm not playing a homosexual," Mr. Barry told the New York Times. "I'm playing a person who cares deeply about another person. The role is loving another person onstage. It doesn't matter whether it's a man, a woman or a giraffe. It has nothing to do with sexuality, as far as I'm concerned. I play the dignity of the man, his concern for his lover and his concern and love for his son."
Bit of trivia: Barry played a murderous psychiatrist in "Prescription: Murder," the 1968 TV movie that kicked off Peter Falk's career as Lt. Columbo.