Burgess Meredith

**Oliver Burgess Meredith** (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997) was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed theater, film, and television.

Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "one of the most accomplished actors of the century". A lifetime member of the Actors Studio, he won several Emmys, was the first male actor to win the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, and was nominated for two Academy Awards.

He established himself as a leading man in Hollywood with critically acclaimed performances as Mio Romagna in *Winterset* (1936), George Milton in *Of Mice and Men* (1939), and Ernie Pyle in *The Story of G.I. Joe* (1945).

Meredith was known later in his career for his appearances on *The Twilight Zone* and for portraying The Penguin in the 1960s TV series *Batman* and boxing trainer Mickey Goldmill in the *Rocky* film series. For his performances in *The Day of the Locust* (1975) and *Rocky* (1976), he received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He later appeared in the comedy *Foul Play* (1978) and the fantasy film *Clash of the Titans* (1981). He narrated numerous films and documentaries during his long career.

"Although those performances renewed his popularity," observed Mel Gussow in *The New York Times*, "they represented only a small part of a richly varied career in which he played many of the more demanding roles in classical and contemporary theater—in plays by Shakespeare, O'Neill, Beckett and others."

## Early life

Meredith was born in 1907 in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Ida Beth (née Burgess; 1861–1933) and Dr. William George Meredith (1861–1938), a Canadian-born physician of English descent. His mother came from a long line of Methodist revivalists, a religion to which he adhered throughout his lifetime. He graduated from Hoosac School in 1926 and then attended Amherst College (class of 1931). He left Amherst and became a reporter for the *Stamford Advocate*.

## Career

### Theatre

In 1929, he became a member of Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre company in New York City. Although best known to the larger world audience for his film and television work, Meredith was an influential actor and director for the stage. He made his Broadway debut as Peter in Le Gallienne's production of *Romeo and Juliet* (1930) and became a star in Maxwell Anderson's *Winterset* (1935), which became his film debut the following year. His early life and theatre work were the subject of a *New Yorker* profile. In 1935, he starred along with Hugh Williams at the Martin Beck Theatre in John Van Druten's *Flowers of the Forest*.

He garnered critical acclaim in the 1935 Broadway revival of *The Barretts of Wimpole Street* starring Katharine Cornell. She subsequently cast him in several of her later productions. Other Broadway roles included Van van Dorn in *High Tor* (1937), Liliom in *Liliom* (1940), Christy Mahon in *The Playboy of the Western World* (1946), and Adolphus Cusins in *Major Barbara* (1956). He created the role of Erie Smith in the English-language premiere of Eugene O'Neill's *Hughie* at the Theater Royal in Bath, England in 1963. He played Hamlet in *avant garde* theatrical and radio productions of the play.

A distinguished theatre director, he earned a Tony Award nomination for his 1974 Broadway staging of *Ulysses in Nighttown*, a theatrical adaptation of the "Nighttown" section of James Joyce's *Ulysses*. Meredith also shared a Special Tony Award with James Thurber for their collaboration on *A Thurber Carnival* (1960). In the late seventies, he directed Fionnula Flanagan's one-woman multi-role play *James Joyce's Women*, which toured for several years.

Meredith is the voice of Great Great Great Great Great Uncle Timmy in Robert & Daniel 3000 (1992) & Robert and Daniel Revisited (1995)