Stephen Elliott, Tony-Nominated Actor Who Played Stage and Screen, Dead at 86
By Kenneth Jones
26 May 2005
Stephen Elliott, the handsome patrician character actor at home in classics by Shakespeare, Ibsen and Schiller, or in TV soaps such as "Dallas," died in Los Angeles May 21, according to the Associated Press.
Mr. Elliott was 86. His family said the cause of death was congestive heart failure.
Mr. Elliott was a Tony Award nominee (Best Featured Actor in a Play) for his work in 1967's Marat/Sade. On Broadway, he was a frequent player in works presented by the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center (Mary Stuart, The Crucible, An Enemy of the People and others).
As is the case with many actors, particularly male performers, Mr. Elliott found a great deal of work after middle age, playing doctors, lawyers, judges and businessmen.
He was the nemesis of Dudley Moore in the film comedy "Arthur" and its sequel. In TV's "Chicago Hope" he played Judge Harold Aldrich, on "Dallas" he was Scotty Demarest and on "Falcon Crest" he played Douglas Channing.
The native New Yorker studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. After he returned from serving in the merchant marine during World War II, he made his Broadway debut in a 1945 Cheryl Crawford production of The Tempest (as Boatswain, Mariners and others), sharing the stage with Canada Lee as Caliban and Vera Zorina as Ariel.
Mr. Elliott's Broadway credits include Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business (he played God), The Crucible, Mary Stuart, An Enemy of the People, The Playboy of the Western World, The Good Woman of Setzuan, the musical Georgy, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Miser, A Cry of Players, King Lear, Traveller Without Luggage, Photo Finish, the musical The Gay Life (standing by for the lead role Anatol), Roman Candle, The Shrike and Command Decision.
In the late 1960s, he performed in The Public Theater's Henry IV, Parts I and II and Twelfth Night (as Sir Toby Belch) at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.
According to wire reports, Mr. Elliott is survived by his wife, Alice Hirson; a daughter, Jency, of Woodstock, N.Y.; a son, Jon, of Manhattan; two stepsons, David Hirson of Manhattan and Christopher Hirson of Berlin; and three grandchildren.
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