Brian Dennehy
Brian Manion Dennehy (/ˈdɛnəhi/; July 9, 1938 – April 15, 2020) was an American actor of stage, television, and film. He won two Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, and a Golden Globe, and received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Dennehy had roles in over 180 films and in many television and stage productions. His film roles included First Blood (1982), Gorky Park (1983), Silverado (1985), Cocoon (1985), F/X (1986), Presumed Innocent (1990), Tommy Boy (1995), Romeo + Juliet (1996), Ratatouille (2007), and Knight of Cups (2015). Dennehy won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Willy Loman in the television film Death of a Salesman (2000). Dennehy's final film was Driveways (2020), in which he plays a veteran of the Korean War, living alone, who befriends a young, shy boy who has come with his mother to clean out his deceased aunt's hoarded home.
Brian Dennehy
April 15, 2020 (aged 81)
Actor
1965–2020
5, including Elizabeth
United States
1958–1963
According to Variety, Dennehy was "perhaps the foremost living interpreter" of playwright Eugene O'Neill's works on stage and screen. He had a decades long relationship with Chicago's Goodman Theatre where much of his O'Neill work originated.[1] He also regularly played Canada's Stratford Festival, especially in works by William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett.[2] He once gave credit for his award-winning performances to the plays’ authors: "When you walk with giants, you learn how to take bigger steps."[3] Dennehy was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2010.
Early life[edit]
Brian Manion Dennehy[4] was born on July 9, 1938, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Hannah (Manion), a nurse,[5] and Edward Dennehy, a wire service editor for the Associated Press.[5][6] He had two brothers, Michael and Edward.[7][8] He was of Irish ancestry and was raised Catholic.[9][10] The family relocated to Long Island, New York, where Dennehy attended Chaminade High School in the village of Mineola.[11]
He entered Columbia University in New York City on a football scholarship in the fall of 1956. He interrupted his college education to spend five years in the U.S. Marines. He was stationed in the U.S., Japan, and Korea. He returned to Columbia in 1960 and graduated in 1965 with a B.A. in history.[12] While acting in regional theater he supported his family by working blue-collar jobs including driving a taxi and bartending. He hated his brief stint as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch in their Manhattan office in the mid-1970s.[13] He later described how working odd hours allowed him to attend matinee theater performances that provided his acting education: "I never went to acting school—I was a truck driver and I used to go see everything I could see—Wednesday afternoons".[14][a] In the 1970s, stage performances in New York led to television and film work.[18]
Military service[edit]
Dennehy enlisted in the United States Marine Corps serving from 1958 to 1963, including playing football on Okinawa. In several interviews, he described being wounded in combat and repeatedly claimed to have served in Vietnam.[33][34][35]
In 1999, he apologized for misrepresenting his military record, stating: "I lied about serving in Vietnam, and I'm sorry. I did not mean to take away from the actions and the sacrifices of the ones who did really serve there... I did steal valor. That was very wrong of me. There is no real excuse for that."[36]
Personal life[edit]
Dennehy married for the first time while in the Marines in 1959. Before he finished college he and his first wife had three daughters.[13] Two of them became actresses, including Elizabeth Dennehy.[37] After his first marriage ended in divorce in 1987, he married Jennifer Arnott, an Australian, in 1988, they had two children, a son and a daughter.[4]
Death[edit]
Dennehy died on April 15, 2020, of cardiac arrest due to sepsis.[2][4][38] in New Haven, Connecticut.[39] He was survived by his wife and his five children.[4]