Brian Dennehy remembered as 'towering presence' in Chicago theater
Actor Brian Dennehy was as close to a Chicago native as you could get without having been born here.
A major force in Chicago theater for more than three decades, the actor died Wednesday of natural causes at home in his native Connecticut. He was 81.
One of playwright Eugene O'Neill's most renowned interpreters, Dennehy's talent was as formidable as his stature.
"Theater exists in the moment and then it exists in the memory," said the Tony Award-winner in a 2006 Daily Herald interview. "That's what art is supposed to be, something indelibly etched."
Dennehy's legacy rests upon a series of his own indelibly etched performances, many of which took place at Chicago's Goodman Theatre where he was an artistic associate.
His stage triumphs included Tony-winning turns as James Tyrone in O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" (2003) and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (1999, for which he also earned a Joseph Jefferson Award), both of which originated at the Goodman under Robert Falls, a frequent Dennehy collaborator.
"Brian loved Chicago and loved the Goodman, and shared that love with his collaborators, co-workers and audiences," Falls said in a prepared statement.
Dennehy also earned acclaim for such films as "Silverado," "Presumed Innocent" and "F/X" and TV movies "A Killing in a Small Town" and "To Catch a Killer," for which he earned Emmy Award nominations.
"Through a career that spanned more than four decades, Brian Dennehy's towering presence, genial humanity and emotional explosiveness made him one of the most iconic actors of our era," said Falls.
The longtime friends last worked together on the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 2015 remount of Goodman's 2012 revival of O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh," co-starring Dennehy and Nathan Lane. That production, for which Dennehy earned a Jeff Award for his supporting performance as lapsed anarchist Larry Slade, marked their second "Iceman" collaboration. Dennehy played Hickey Hickman in Goodman's 1990 production, also directed by Falls.
Marked by what Dennehy called "strenuous discussion," their famously volatile collaborations - which commenced in 1985 with Ron Hutchinson's "Rat in the Skull" at Wisdom Bridge Theatre - made for memorable theater.
Falls Thursday called Dennehy one of the finest stage actors of his generation and remembered him as "my most valued artistic collaborator, my muse and my close friend."
His performances were characterized by "seductive bravura laced with brusque impatience ... a monumental passion fed by steely intelligence and unfiltered honesty," Falls added. "But it was his moments of stillness I found most affecting."