George Grizzard Dies at 79

George Grizzard, who played Nick in the original Broadway production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and won the Tony Award for the 1996 revival of Albee’s A Delicate Balance, died in New York City on October 2 from complications from lung cancer, according to The New York Times.

Grizzard, who was born in North Carolina and raised in Washington, D.C., made his Broadway debut in 1955 as Paul Newman’s kid brother in The Desperate Hours. He received the Theatre World Award for his work in the 1957 play The Happiest Millionaire and Tony nominations for Best Featured Actor in a Play for The Disenchanted in 1959 and Big Fish, Little Fish in 1961.

Grizzard worked steadily on Broadway, including Mary, Mary, the 1965 revival of The Glass Menagerie, the1972 revival of The Country Girl, California Suite, and most recently, the 2005 revival of Albee’s Seascape, among many others.

In recent years, Grizzard often worked Off-Broadway, including Nicky Silver’s Beautiful Child at the Vineyard Theatre and Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only at Manhattan Theatre Club. The actor also worked in many of the nation’s most well-known theaters, including a two-year-stint at the Guthrie in Minneapolis, and at Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, where his credits included Friedrich Durrenmatt’s The Physicists.

Grizzard received an Emmy Award for The Oldest Living Graduate and an Emmy nomination for The Adams Chronicles. His film credits included Advise and Consent, Comes a Horseman, Small Time Crooks, and Flags of Our Fathers.

He is survived by his partner, William Tynan.