Leonard Frey
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Leonard Frey (born September 4, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York; died August 24, 1988 in New York) was an American actor.
After college, where he studied art with designs on being a painter, he studied acting at New York City's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse under famed acting coach Sanford Meisner, and decided to pursue a career in theater instead. In 1968, he received critical acclaim for his performance as a bitter, bitchy, pockmarked gay man who dreads his upcoming birthday in off-Broadway's The Boys in the Band. This landmark play introduced mainstream audiences to the culture of gay men who supported each other, providing friendship, family and, when necessary, reality checks. (A homosexual himself, he later died of an AIDS-related illness.) He, along with the rest of the original cast, appeared in the 1970 film version, directed by William Friedkin, as well.
Frey was nominated for a 1975 Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in The National Health. Other stage credits include revivals of The Time of Your Life (1969), Beggar on Horseback (1970), Twelfth Night (1972), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1980).
No doubt due in great part to his tour-de-force song-and-dance number "Miracle of Miracles" in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof, Frey earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Motel the tailor. (He had appeared in the original Broadway production as Mendel, the rabbi's son).
Frey's television credits included appearances in Hallmark Hall of Fame, Medical Center, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Eight is Enough, Quincy, M.E., Hart to Hart, Barney Miller, Moonlighting, and Murder, She Wrote. Although he worked on a steady basis, he never fulfilled the promise of nor received the recognition he did in his early career.
