R.I.P. Arthur Hill
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NY Times
October 27, 2006
Arthur Hill, Actor Who Won Tony for ‘Virginia Woolf,’ Dies at 84
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Arthur Hill, who brought engrossing complexity and understated intelligence to hundreds of roles on stage, screen and television and won a Tony Award for his performance in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” died on Sunday in Pacific Palisades, Calif. He was 84.
The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his friend Walter Seltzer said.
Mr. Hill was a well-known face on television for many years. On the television series “Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law,” which ran from 1971 to 1974, he played the title role, a lawyer whose main interest was helping people.
He stopped acting after his first wife, Peggy Hassard, died in 1990.
His television work included “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “The Defenders,” “Ben Casey,” “The Untouchables,” “The F.B.I.,” “Mission: Impossible,” “The Fugitive” and “Marcus Welby, M.D.” His many films included “Harper,” “A Bridge Too Far,” “The Ugly American” and “The Andromeda Strain.”
In addition to his performance in “Virginia Woolf,” Mr. Hill’s Broadway career included roles in the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramas “All the Way Home” and “Look Homeward, Angel.”
Arthur Edward Spence Hill was born in Melfort, Saskatchewan, on the Canadian prairie. His boyhood ambition was to be a lawyer like his father, who knew each of the town’s 2,000 residents and was eager to help them with their problems. Writers have noted that in many ways Arthur Hill’s “Owen Marshall” character resembled the actor’s father.
Mr. Hill’s pre-law studies at the University of British Columbia were interrupted when he was drafted into the Royal Canadian Air Force, where he was a mechanic. After World War II he returned to the university, earned his bachelor’s degree and began taking courses for a law degree.
Needing money, he successfully auditioned for an acting job at a local radio station. He also joined a campus theatrical group. He toured Canada with the group before moving to London, where he almost immediately found a radio job with the British Broadcasting Corporation; after four months, he moved on to television and theater performances.
Mr. Hill appeared in several West End productions and arrived on Broadway in 1955 in Thornton Wilder’s play “The Matchmaker,” which was successful on both sides of the Atlantic.
Walter Kerr, writing in The New York Herald Tribune, called him an “enormously gifted player.”
In “Look Homeward, Angel,” the stage adaptation of Thomas Wolfe’s novel, he played Ben Gant, the dying older brother of the drama’s principal character. Richard Watts Jr. in The New York Post lauded his “infinitely understanding and touching portrayal.”
Mr. Hill continued to work on Broadway in the 1950’s. He also moved into television, appearing on “The U.S. Steel Hour,” “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” “Studio One” and other shows that emphasized serious drama. His American screen debut was in “The Young Doctors” in 1961.
Mr. Hill was in Paris working on the movie “In the Cool of the Day,” in which he starred as the overprotective husband of a woman played by Jane Fonda, when he received the voluminous script of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” He later recalled that he felt intimidated by it.
By the time he reached New York, the play was already in rehearsal, and he told interviewers that he was so worried about catching up, he considered dropping out of the project.
Mr. Hill stayed the course, partly because thoughtful characters intrigued him, he said in an interview with The New York Times. He played George, a failing middle-aged college professor locked in repetitive razor-sharp emotional confrontations with his acid-tongued wife, Martha, played by Uta Hagen. He won a Tony for best actor for the 1962-63 season and the New York Drama Critics award for best actor.
Howard Taubman in The Times praised Mr. Hill’s “superbly modulated performance built on restraint as a foil to Miss Hagen’s explosiveness.”
Another of Mr. Hill’s Broadway roles was in 1967 in Eugene O’Neill’s “More Stately Mansions.” Working opposite Ingrid Bergman, he drew mixed reviews for his role as a man torn between a possessive wife and a possessive mother.
Mr. Hill’s survivors include his wife, Anne-Sophie Taraba; his son, Douglas, of Los Angeles; his stepdaughter, Xenia, of Washington; and his sisters, Pat and Eunice, both of Winnipeg, Canada. Mr. Hill took the acclaim he won for “Virginia Woolf” in stride, he said in an interview with The New York World-Telegram and Sun in 1962.
“I’m a fellow in the business,” he said. “I’ve been in it all my life. It’s nice it happened. But I wouldn’t have died if it hadn’t.”
---------------------------------------
LA Times
Arthur Hill, 84; won Tony for `Woolf' role
By Jon Thurber
Times Staff Writer
October 27, 2006
Arthur Hill, a veteran actor whose career was punctuated by two distinctly different roles the weary, abused husband in the Broadway production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and the stalwart attorney in the television series "Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law" has died. He was 84.
Hill died Sunday of Alzheimer's disease at an assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, according to his son, Douglas.
Known for his deep, pensive eyes and soft, calming voice, Hill fashioned a busy career over 40 years. He won a Tony Award for his work in the groundbreaking production of Edward Albee's "Virginia Woolf" and appeared in "More Stately Mansions," the Eugene O'Neill play that was the inaugural production at the Music Center's Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
Hill's portrayal of Marshall, a small-town attorney, ran on ABC from 1971 to 1974. The show, which featured such up-and-coming actors as Lee Majors and David Soul as Marshall's associates, was modeled after another popular ABC series, "Marcus Welby, M.D.," which starred Robert Young as a small-town doctor.
In fact, the shows had several joint episodes.
According to "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present" by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, in one episode "Marshall found himself defending the father of one of Dr. Welby's patients against a murder charge." In another episode, Brooks and Marsh note, he defended an associate of Welby's against a paternity suit.
While Hill was perhaps best known for his role as Marshall, he also delivered substantial performances in the TV films "Death Be Not Proud" (1975) and "Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys" (1976). His big-screen credits include work with Marlon Brando in "The Ugly American" (1963), Paul Newman in "Harper" (1966) and a potentially lethal virus from outer space in "The Andromeda Strain" (1971).
Born in the Saskatchewan town of Melfort, Hill was the son of a lawyer. After serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, he earned his degree from the University of British Columbia. To support himself through school, where he planned to earn a law degree, he found work with the Canadian Broadcasting Co. performing in radio theater, and loved it.
"In acting, I seemed to instinctively know what was going on, while other students worked at it," he told The Times' Cecil Smith some years ago. "And in law, they seemed to take to it instinctively, while I had to work at it."
Hill moved to England with his actress wife, Peggy Hassard, in 1948. There he worked for the BBC in radio plays while expanding his activities to theater and television.
His break in London theater came in the early 1950s in productions of "Home of the Brave" and Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker." Hill first appeared on the New York stage in "The Matchmaker" in 1955.
In 1962, he was back in London working on a film when he received a copy of the script for "Virginia Woolf?" from director Alan Schneider. Schneider wanted him to play George, the beleaguered husband in Albee's drama of a long-married couple acting out their love-hate relationship during an evening of heavy drinking and stark profanity at their home on a college campus.
"That script was the size of a telephone book, but I knew I had to be part of it," Hill told a Times reporter in 1967. "Later, when I learned the script would not be cut and that there would be no out-of-town tryouts, I fought to get out of it.
"Fortunately, I didn't."
Cast opposite Uta Hagen as Martha, and with George Grizzard and Melinda Dillon, the play was a sensation and ran for 664 performances from Oct. 13, 1962, to May 13, 1964.
"If the drama falters, the acting of Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill does not," critic Howard Taubman observed in his review of the play in the New York Times. "As the vulgar, scornful, desperate Martha, Miss Hagen makes a tormented harridan horrifyingly believable. As the quieter, tortured and diabolical George, Mr. Hill gives a superbly modulated performance based on restraint as a foil to Miss Hagen's explosiveness."
The production garnered five Tonys, with Hill and Hagen winning for best actor and actress.
In 1967, Hill was part of more groundbreaking theater work, this time in the first English-language production of "More Stately Mansions," at the Ahmanson. His co-stars were Ingrid Bergman and Colleen Dewhurst.
While the play was considered something of a mystery to critics and the casting reflected the importance of name value over story line, Hill, Bergman and Dewhurst all received high marks.
By 1968, Hill had moved to Los Angeles to mine the steadier veins of television and film.
In his memoirs, "Virginia Woolf" director Schneider reflected on Hill's decision to head west.
"The roles he now gets out there are bland/sincere or establishment/hypocritical. That is a loss to American theater, because onstage Arthur Hill, mature and attractive as he was and is, could give us something we do not have. The pram in the hallway does indeed remain the enemy of art."
In Hollywood, Hill appeared in films and some 50 television series, most recently "Murder, She Wrote" in 1990.
His 56-year marriage to Hassard ended with her death from Alzheimer's disease in 1998.
In addition to his son, he is survived by his second wife, Anne-Sophie Taraba; a stepdaughter, Daryn Sherman; a step-granddaughter; and two sisters.
There will be no services.
October 27, 2006
Arthur Hill, Actor Who Won Tony for ‘Virginia Woolf,’ Dies at 84
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Arthur Hill, who brought engrossing complexity and understated intelligence to hundreds of roles on stage, screen and television and won a Tony Award for his performance in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” died on Sunday in Pacific Palisades, Calif. He was 84.
The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his friend Walter Seltzer said.
Mr. Hill was a well-known face on television for many years. On the television series “Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law,” which ran from 1971 to 1974, he played the title role, a lawyer whose main interest was helping people.
He stopped acting after his first wife, Peggy Hassard, died in 1990.
His television work included “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “The Defenders,” “Ben Casey,” “The Untouchables,” “The F.B.I.,” “Mission: Impossible,” “The Fugitive” and “Marcus Welby, M.D.” His many films included “Harper,” “A Bridge Too Far,” “The Ugly American” and “The Andromeda Strain.”
In addition to his performance in “Virginia Woolf,” Mr. Hill’s Broadway career included roles in the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramas “All the Way Home” and “Look Homeward, Angel.”
Arthur Edward Spence Hill was born in Melfort, Saskatchewan, on the Canadian prairie. His boyhood ambition was to be a lawyer like his father, who knew each of the town’s 2,000 residents and was eager to help them with their problems. Writers have noted that in many ways Arthur Hill’s “Owen Marshall” character resembled the actor’s father.
Mr. Hill’s pre-law studies at the University of British Columbia were interrupted when he was drafted into the Royal Canadian Air Force, where he was a mechanic. After World War II he returned to the university, earned his bachelor’s degree and began taking courses for a law degree.
Needing money, he successfully auditioned for an acting job at a local radio station. He also joined a campus theatrical group. He toured Canada with the group before moving to London, where he almost immediately found a radio job with the British Broadcasting Corporation; after four months, he moved on to television and theater performances.
Mr. Hill appeared in several West End productions and arrived on Broadway in 1955 in Thornton Wilder’s play “The Matchmaker,” which was successful on both sides of the Atlantic.
Walter Kerr, writing in The New York Herald Tribune, called him an “enormously gifted player.”
In “Look Homeward, Angel,” the stage adaptation of Thomas Wolfe’s novel, he played Ben Gant, the dying older brother of the drama’s principal character. Richard Watts Jr. in The New York Post lauded his “infinitely understanding and touching portrayal.”
Mr. Hill continued to work on Broadway in the 1950’s. He also moved into television, appearing on “The U.S. Steel Hour,” “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” “Studio One” and other shows that emphasized serious drama. His American screen debut was in “The Young Doctors” in 1961.
Mr. Hill was in Paris working on the movie “In the Cool of the Day,” in which he starred as the overprotective husband of a woman played by Jane Fonda, when he received the voluminous script of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” He later recalled that he felt intimidated by it.
By the time he reached New York, the play was already in rehearsal, and he told interviewers that he was so worried about catching up, he considered dropping out of the project.
Mr. Hill stayed the course, partly because thoughtful characters intrigued him, he said in an interview with The New York Times. He played George, a failing middle-aged college professor locked in repetitive razor-sharp emotional confrontations with his acid-tongued wife, Martha, played by Uta Hagen. He won a Tony for best actor for the 1962-63 season and the New York Drama Critics award for best actor.
Howard Taubman in The Times praised Mr. Hill’s “superbly modulated performance built on restraint as a foil to Miss Hagen’s explosiveness.”
Another of Mr. Hill’s Broadway roles was in 1967 in Eugene O’Neill’s “More Stately Mansions.” Working opposite Ingrid Bergman, he drew mixed reviews for his role as a man torn between a possessive wife and a possessive mother.
Mr. Hill’s survivors include his wife, Anne-Sophie Taraba; his son, Douglas, of Los Angeles; his stepdaughter, Xenia, of Washington; and his sisters, Pat and Eunice, both of Winnipeg, Canada. Mr. Hill took the acclaim he won for “Virginia Woolf” in stride, he said in an interview with The New York World-Telegram and Sun in 1962.
“I’m a fellow in the business,” he said. “I’ve been in it all my life. It’s nice it happened. But I wouldn’t have died if it hadn’t.”
---------------------------------------
LA Times
Arthur Hill, 84; won Tony for `Woolf' role
By Jon Thurber
Times Staff Writer
October 27, 2006
Arthur Hill, a veteran actor whose career was punctuated by two distinctly different roles the weary, abused husband in the Broadway production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and the stalwart attorney in the television series "Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law" has died. He was 84.
Hill died Sunday of Alzheimer's disease at an assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, according to his son, Douglas.
Known for his deep, pensive eyes and soft, calming voice, Hill fashioned a busy career over 40 years. He won a Tony Award for his work in the groundbreaking production of Edward Albee's "Virginia Woolf" and appeared in "More Stately Mansions," the Eugene O'Neill play that was the inaugural production at the Music Center's Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
Hill's portrayal of Marshall, a small-town attorney, ran on ABC from 1971 to 1974. The show, which featured such up-and-coming actors as Lee Majors and David Soul as Marshall's associates, was modeled after another popular ABC series, "Marcus Welby, M.D.," which starred Robert Young as a small-town doctor.
In fact, the shows had several joint episodes.
According to "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present" by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, in one episode "Marshall found himself defending the father of one of Dr. Welby's patients against a murder charge." In another episode, Brooks and Marsh note, he defended an associate of Welby's against a paternity suit.
While Hill was perhaps best known for his role as Marshall, he also delivered substantial performances in the TV films "Death Be Not Proud" (1975) and "Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys" (1976). His big-screen credits include work with Marlon Brando in "The Ugly American" (1963), Paul Newman in "Harper" (1966) and a potentially lethal virus from outer space in "The Andromeda Strain" (1971).
Born in the Saskatchewan town of Melfort, Hill was the son of a lawyer. After serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, he earned his degree from the University of British Columbia. To support himself through school, where he planned to earn a law degree, he found work with the Canadian Broadcasting Co. performing in radio theater, and loved it.
"In acting, I seemed to instinctively know what was going on, while other students worked at it," he told The Times' Cecil Smith some years ago. "And in law, they seemed to take to it instinctively, while I had to work at it."
Hill moved to England with his actress wife, Peggy Hassard, in 1948. There he worked for the BBC in radio plays while expanding his activities to theater and television.
His break in London theater came in the early 1950s in productions of "Home of the Brave" and Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker." Hill first appeared on the New York stage in "The Matchmaker" in 1955.
In 1962, he was back in London working on a film when he received a copy of the script for "Virginia Woolf?" from director Alan Schneider. Schneider wanted him to play George, the beleaguered husband in Albee's drama of a long-married couple acting out their love-hate relationship during an evening of heavy drinking and stark profanity at their home on a college campus.
"That script was the size of a telephone book, but I knew I had to be part of it," Hill told a Times reporter in 1967. "Later, when I learned the script would not be cut and that there would be no out-of-town tryouts, I fought to get out of it.
"Fortunately, I didn't."
Cast opposite Uta Hagen as Martha, and with George Grizzard and Melinda Dillon, the play was a sensation and ran for 664 performances from Oct. 13, 1962, to May 13, 1964.
"If the drama falters, the acting of Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill does not," critic Howard Taubman observed in his review of the play in the New York Times. "As the vulgar, scornful, desperate Martha, Miss Hagen makes a tormented harridan horrifyingly believable. As the quieter, tortured and diabolical George, Mr. Hill gives a superbly modulated performance based on restraint as a foil to Miss Hagen's explosiveness."
The production garnered five Tonys, with Hill and Hagen winning for best actor and actress.
In 1967, Hill was part of more groundbreaking theater work, this time in the first English-language production of "More Stately Mansions," at the Ahmanson. His co-stars were Ingrid Bergman and Colleen Dewhurst.
While the play was considered something of a mystery to critics and the casting reflected the importance of name value over story line, Hill, Bergman and Dewhurst all received high marks.
By 1968, Hill had moved to Los Angeles to mine the steadier veins of television and film.
In his memoirs, "Virginia Woolf" director Schneider reflected on Hill's decision to head west.
"The roles he now gets out there are bland/sincere or establishment/hypocritical. That is a loss to American theater, because onstage Arthur Hill, mature and attractive as he was and is, could give us something we do not have. The pram in the hallway does indeed remain the enemy of art."
In Hollywood, Hill appeared in films and some 50 television series, most recently "Murder, She Wrote" in 1990.
His 56-year marriage to Hassard ended with her death from Alzheimer's disease in 1998.
In addition to his son, he is survived by his second wife, Anne-Sophie Taraba; a stepdaughter, Daryn Sherman; a step-granddaughter; and two sisters.
There will be no services.