Norman Lloyd

Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd, 2007
Born	Norman Nathan Lloyd (1914-11-08) November 8, 1914 Jersey City, New Jersey
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1932–present
Spouse(s)	Peggy Craven (1936–2011; her death)
Children	2

Norman Nathan Lloyd (born November 8, 1914) is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning roughly eight decades. Lloyd has appeared in over sixty films and television shows. His prominent film roles include Fry in Saboteur, Bodalink in Limelight, Mr. Nolan in Dead Poets Society and Mr. Letterblair in The Age of Innocence. In the 1980s, he gained a new generation of fans for playing Dr. Daniel Auschlander, one of the starring roles on the groundbreaking medical drama St. Elsewhere.^[1]

Early life and theatre work

Lloyd with the Federal Theatre Project in 1937

The Man Who Knows All (Robert Noack) explains the kilowatt hour to the Consumer (Lloyd) in Power, a Living Newspaper play for the Federal Theater Project (1937)

Norman Lloyd was born on November 8, 1914 in Jersey City, New Jersey. His family was Jewish.^[2] He attended high school and college in New York City. He started his career as a song and dance child performer during the 1920s.^[3] He began his acting career in theater first at Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre in New York, then joining the original company of the Orson Welles – John Houseman Mercury Theatre. Lloyd had a significant role with the first Mercury Theatre production as Cinna the poet, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1937). The 1938 Broadway role in Everywhere I Roam, as Johnny Appleseed, was selected as one of the ten best Broadway performances of the year. Lloyd was also a featured radio actor, including as part of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater and later in Norman Corwin's The Undecided Molecule. Lloyd met his wife, actress Peggy Craven, while they were co-starring in Elia Kazan's play Crime.^[4]

Film acting

Lloyd came to Hollywood to play a Nazi spy in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), starting a long friendship and professional association with Hitchcock. After a few more villainous film roles, Lloyd also worked behind the camera as an assistant on Lewis Milestone's Arch of Triumph (1948). A friend of John Garfield, Lloyd appeared with him in He Ran All the Way, Garfield's last film before the Hollywood blacklist ended his film career.

Post-war career

A marginal victim of the blacklist, Lloyd was rescued professionally by Hitchcock, who had previously used the actor in Saboteur and Spellbound (1945). Hitchcock hired Lloyd as an associate producer and a director on his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1958. Previously, Lloyd was the director of the syndicated television series The Adventures of Kit Carson starring Bill Williams. Lloyd also directed the sponsored film A Word to the Wives (1955) with Marsha Hunt and Darren McGavin. He continued directing and producing episodic television throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He took an unusual role in the Night Gallery episode "A Feast of Blood" as the bearer of a cursed brooch, which he inflicts upon a hapless woman, played by Sondra Locke, who had spurned his romantic advances.

In the 1980s Lloyd played Dr. Auschlander in the television drama St. Elsewhere over its six-season run (1982–1988). Originally scheduled for only four episodes, Lloyd became a regular for the remainder of the series.^[5] In addition to Ed Flanders and William Daniels, St. Elsewhere included a roster of relative unknowns, including Ed Begley, Jr., Denzel Washington, Stephen Furst, Eric Laneuville, David Morse and Howie Mandel. Mandel, who played rowdy and unorthodox ER resident Dr. Wayne Fiscus, recalled that "He was very inspirational between scenes, always cheering up everybody, and always smiles when Norman Lloyd passed through!"^[6]

In 1989 he made his first film role in nearly a decade, playing Mr. Nolan, the authoritative headmaster of Welton Academy in Dead Poets Society. Initially, Lloyd was hesitant when asked to audition, because he thought the director and producers could judge whether or not he was right for the part by watching his acting on St. Elsewhere. Director Peter Weir was living in Australia and had not seen St. Elsewhere. Lloyd agreed to audition for him after winning his daily tennis match. From 1998-2001 he played Dr. Isaac Mentnor in the UPN science fiction drama Seven Days. His numerous television guest-star appearances include The Joseph Cotten Show, Murder, She Wrote, The Twilight Zone, Wiseguy, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Wings, The Practice and Civil Wars.

He has played in various radio plays for Peggy Webber's California Artists Radio Theater and Yuri Rasovsky's Hollywood Theater of the Ear. His most recent film role was in In Her Shoes (2005). He is the subject of the documentary Who Is Norman Lloyd?, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on September 1, 2007. In 2010 he guest starred in an episode of ABC's Modern Family.^[7] On December 5, 2010 he starred in a one-man show at the Colony Theatre, in Burbank, California, where he spoke of his career and answered questions from the audience.

Personal life

His wife of 75 years, Peggy, died on August 30, 2011, at the age of 98; the couple had two children, one of whom is the actress Josie Lloyd.^[4]

Lloyd's hobby is tennis, which he has practiced since the age of 8. He quipped in an interview, "with the application and time I have devoted to it, I should have been a reigning World Champion".^[3] He played against Charlie Chaplin, Joseph Cotten and Spencer Tracy. As of 2014, Lloyd still plays twice a week.^[8]

He turned 100 on November 8, 2014.^[9] Longtime friends and acting proteges, Howie Mandel and Ed Begley Jr., reflected on his Centenarian birthday: Mandel said, "I love Norman Lloyd. He is a legend. I have spent hours like a little kid while he regaled us with stories of Hitchcock. He teaches, he entertains. He is a legend!"; and Begley Jr. said, "I worked with Norman Lloyd the actor and Norman Lloyd the director, and no one informed me better on the art of storytelling than that talented man. He is a constant inspiration, and my eternal friend."^[10]

Filmography

Cinema

TV

• Omnibus (Director, 1952-1953; "Mr. Lincoln")
• The United States Steel Hour as Francis Oberon (1956; "We Must Kill Tony")
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Lieutenant Orsatti, Charles Brailing, Narrator (uncredited), The Little Man, Leo Thorby (1957-1961; "Nightmare in 4-D", "Design for Loving", "The Day of the Bullet", "The Little Man Who Was There" "Maria")
• The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Executive producer, 1962-1965; 63 episodes)
• Columbo (Director, 1971; "Lady in Waiting")
• The Scarecrow (play) as Dickon (1972 televised version)
• Kojak as Harry Fein (1975; "Night of the Piraeus")
• Quincy M.E. as Cornelius Sumner (1982; "Stolen Tears")
• St. Elsewhere as Dr. Daniel Auschlander (1982–1988; 124 episodes)
• The Paper Chase as Professor (1985; "Laura's Struggle")
• The Twilight Zone as Merlin (1986; "The Last Defender of Camelot")
• Murder, She Wrote as Lloyd Marcus, Philip Arkham and Edward St. Cloud (1986, 1991, 1993; "If the Frame Fits", "The Committee", "Murder in White")
• Wiseguy as General Leland Masters (1989; 3 episodes)
• Home Fires as Dr. Marcus (1992; 6 episodes)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation as Professor Galen (1993; "The Chase")
• Wings as Lyle Bartlett (1996; "Bye George")
• Seven Days as Dr. Isaac Mentnor (1998–2001; 48 episodes)
• Fail Safe as Defense Secretary Swenson (2000; televised play)
• The Practice as D.A. Silverman (1997-1998, 2002; 3 episodes)
• Who is Norman Lloyd?^[11] (documentary, 2007)
• Modern Family as Donald (2010; "Manny Get Your Gun")^[12]

References

External links

• Norman Lloyd at the Internet Movie Database
• Norman Lloyd at the Internet Broadway Database
• BN bio
• Vidiot.com bio and photo
• Stage work
• Archive of American Television: Norman Lloyd, 2000
• Who is Norman Lloyd? film website
• The Man Who Fell Off The Statue of Liberty: An Interview with Norman Lloyd (TCM's Movie Morlocks)
• Interview with Norman Lloyd, October, 2014, Hill Country News