Fritz Weaver

Fritz William Weaver (January 19, 1926 − November 26, 2016) was an American actor in television, stage, and motion pictures. In cinema, he is best recognized from his debut film Fail Safe (1964), as well as Marathon Man (1976), Creepshow (1982) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). Among many television roles, he performed in two seminal projects: the movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) and the mini-series Holocaust (1978), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. He was further known for his work in science fiction and fantasy, especially in television series and movies like The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, The X-Files, The Martian Chronicles and Demon Seed, and also narrated educational TV programs.

Early life

Weaver was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on January 19, 1926,^[1] the son of Elsa W. (née Stringaro) Weaver and John Carson Weaver.^[2] His mother was of Italian descent and his father was a social worker from Pittsburgh with deep American roots.^[3] His younger sister was art director Mary Dodson.^[4]

Weaver attended the Fanny Edel Falk Laboratory School^[5] at the University of Pittsburgh as a child, followed by Peabody High School. He served in Civilian Public Service as a conscientious objector during World War II.

Career

Following the war, Weaver worked at various jobs before turning to acting in the early 1950s. His first acting role for television came in 1956 for an episode of The United States Steel Hour. Weaver continued to act in television during the next four decades. He also appeared in the made-for-TV movies The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) and Holocaust (1978), earning an Emmy nomination for the latter; the award went to his co-star Michael Moriarty.

Weaver won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance for the Broadway play Child's Play (1970). His other Broadway credits included The Chalk Garden (Tony nomination and Theatre World Award win), All American, Baker Street, Absurd Person Singular, Love Letters, and The Crucible. He appeared in the off-Broadway play Burnt Piano for the HB Playwrights Theatre, and with Uta Hagen in a television adaptation of Norman Corwin's play The World of Carl Sandburg.

Weaver also acted in motion pictures, generally as a supporting player. He appeared in such movies as Fail-Safe (1964; as a jingoist and increasingly unstable U.S. Air Force colonel, ashamed of his foreign-born and alcoholic parents, which he refers to as "those people"), Marathon Man (1976; as a professor advising the protagonist, a graduate student), Black Sunday (1977; as the lead FBI agent in an anti-terrorism effort) and Creepshow (1982), and John McTiernan's remake of The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). He also had roles in The Day of the Dolphin (1973), Demon Seed (1977), The Big Fix (1978), and Sidney Lumet's Power (1986). Beginning in 1995, Weaver worked primarily as a voice actor, providing narration for programs on the History Channel. After making his third guest appearance on Law & Order in 2005,^[6] Weaver made a "secret decision to retire".^[7]

In 2010, Weaver was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.^[8] Shortly thereafter, he came out of retirement to make an uncredited cameo in This Must Be the Place (2011), voicing the deceased father of Sean Penn's protagonist. He went on to give prominent supporting performances in the Emmy-nominated television film Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight (2013) and the theatrically-released We'll Never Have Paris (2014), The Cobbler (2014) and The Congressman (2016).

Personal life and death

Weaver married, secondly, to actress Rochelle Oliver in 1997. His first marriage had ended in divorce. He died at his home in Manhattan on November 26, 2016.^[1] He was survived by his wife, his daughter Lydia Weaver, his son Anthony, and a grandson. His sister, art director Mary Dodson, had passed away some nine months prior.^[1]

Select filmography

Film

• To Trap a Spy (1964)
• Fail Safe (1964)
• The Borgia Stick (1967)
• The Maltese Bippy (1969)
• A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)
• The Day of the Dolphin (1973)
• The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975)
• Marathon Man (1976)
• Black Sunday (1977)
• Demon Seed (1977)
• Captains Courageous (1977)
• The Big Fix (1978)
• Nightkill (1980)
• Creepshow (1982)
• Power (1986)
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
• We'll Never Have Paris (2014)
• The Cobbler (2014)
• The Congressman (2016)

Television

• Deep Space Nine (Played Kovat - Season 2 - Episode: 25, "Tribunal" - 1994)
• 'Way Out (Episode: "William and Mary")
• Tales from the Darkside (Episodes: Comet Watch (1986), Inside the Closet (1984))
• The Twilight Zone (original series) (Episodes: "Third from the Sun", "The Obsolete Man")
• The Twilight Zone (1985 revival) (Episode: "The Star")
• Beyond This Place
• Dr. Kildare
• Don't Eat the Pictures as Osiris
• The Fugitive
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• Rawhide
• The Asphalt Jungle
• Mission: Impossible
• Combat!
• Gunsmoke
• The Big Valley
• Mannix
• Night Gallery
• The New Land (Episode: "The Word is: Giving" - unaired)
• Kung Fu
• Hawaii Five-O
• Wonder Woman
• Magnum, P.I.
• Holocaust
• The Martian Chronicles
• Murder, She Wrote
• Matlock
• Law & Order
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (in the episode "Tribunal")
• Twelve O'Clock High (TV series)
• The X-Files, Frasier
• Friday the 13th: The Series, (in the two-part episode of the third season opener named "The Prophecies")
• Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight

References

External links

• Fritz Weaver at the Internet Movie Database
• Fritz Weaver(Aveleyman)