Robert Wesley Addy (August 4, 1913 – December 31, 1996)R Wesley Addy in the U.S., Social Security Applications and Claim Index, 1936-2007, retrieved from Ancestry.com was an American actor of stage, television, and film.
Early life Addy was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the second child and only son of John Roy Addy, a minister, and his Danish-born wife, Maren S. Nelson, a nurse.1920 United States Federal Census for Wesley Addy, California > Los Angeles > Los Angeles Assembly District 66 > District 0248, retrieved from Ancestry.com The family had come from Ohio, where Addy's father and older sister were born. The parents were recruited as missionaries bound for China, but his father suffered a nervous breakdown on the way, and the family wound up in Inglewood, California. Addy attended Inglewood Union High School, where he played the oboe. He graduated high school in January 1930.
Addy entered UCLA as an economics major during the spring quarter of 1930, but switched to dramatics after his freshman year. He was active in the university's Dramatic Society from his sophomore year. During his junior year he played Orestes in Choephoroe, drawing praise from the Los Angeles Times drama critic. While a senior, he played Sebastian in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and the Earl of Essex in Elizabeth the Queen with a cast that included classmates Lloyd Bridges and Russell Zink. Addy also reprised his performance of Orestes, this time in Eumenides.
Pre-war stage career After graduating from UCLA, Addy moved to the East Coast at the invitation of a family friend, Phidelah Rice, who owned a theater on Martha's Vineyard. He joined the Vineyard Player's summer stock company, which performed at the Rice Playhouse. Though obscure, it was a professional company which likely secured for Addy his first Equity card.
Panic and Hamlet His first Broadway theatre credit came in March 1935 with Panic. Directed by John Houseman, the production starred a very young Orson Welles, with Richard Whorf, Paula Trueman, Abner Biberman, and Karl Swenson in supporting roles. Addy had two minor bits, as one of the Unemployed in the Depression-themed work, and as a male chorus member under the direction of Martha Graham. His second Broadway credit was a short-lived fey drama called How Beautiful with Shoes for which he had a minor bit.
Addy then worked at smaller theatres in the outlying New York City area, featuring with Ruth Gordon in a revival of Maxwell Anderson's Saturday's Children, and following it with Fresh Fields His first break came with There's Always Juliet, a Federal Theatre revival production. With only two principals and two minor characters in the work, Addy received prominent attention from the critics, particularly since he joined the cast at the last moment, replacing the leading male.The programs had already been printed with the other actor's name, so Addy's was inserted by hand.
When John Houseman was asked to help direct Leslie Howard's production of Hamlet, he remembered Addy from Panic and suggested him for the role of Marcellus. After a week's tryout in Boston, it moved to the Imperial Theatre on Broadway in November 1936, where Addy picked up the additional role of Fortinbras. Directed by Houseman, with the internal play staged by Agnes de Mille, Howard's portrayal suffered from comparison with the more traditional version of John Gielgud, then running at the Empire Theatre. The production went on the road to Chicago after 39 performances, touring for nine weeks until finishing up in San Francisco in February 1937.
Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 His next known performance was in Richard II, which returned to Broadway during September 1937 after a hiatus for the summer months. Addy replaced another actor in two minor roles for this production staged by Margaret Webster that starred Maurice Evans. After a month back on Broadway, the production went to Boston then to Philadelphia.
While still playing in Richard II, Addy began rehearsals for King Henry IV, Part 1, in which he would play Hotspur. Two tryout performances were given in Philadelphia during December 1937, with Maurice Evans as Falstaff. Critic Linton Martin of The Philadelphia Inquirer was impressed with Addy's performance: ...Wesley Addy as the hot-blooded Hotspur, headlong, heroic and humorous, came perilously close to stealing the show during his vivid and vigorous appearances. After Richard II continued on to Detroit, two more tryouts of Henry IV, Part I were presented, where again Addy's Hotspur drew praise second only to Evans' Falstaff. The pattern was repeated in St. Louis and Chicago as the Richard II tour finished up in March 1938.
For unknown reasons, Evans and Webster decided against taking Henry IV, Part 1 to Broadway in 1938. A rumor appeared in newspapers that Evans was not happy with Addy's acclaim, but one critic pointed out that American theatregoers, unfamiliar with English history and the larger Henriad, assumed Hotspur was the hero of the play and reacted negatively to his death.
Hamlet again Addy next appeared in summer stock with the Surry Players in rural Surry, Maine. This was a self-contained "colony" troupe with its own theatre, which provided housing and meals for its cast members, and offered them dancing and fencing instruction. Here Addy performed in four plays during the summer of 1938, while frustrating a local journalist's attempt to get him to open up about himself: [There's] nothing to tell... I was graduated from the University of California in 1934 and went right to a stock company on Martha's Vineyard, without even waiting for my diploma – and I've been in the theater more or less ever since. Back on Broadway for the fall season, he played in Evans and Webster's production of Hamlet from October 1938 thru January 1939, at which time they finally decided to mount Henry IV, Part 1. Addy again played Hotspur, to high praise from the reviewers: Otherwise the performance of the evening is that of Wesley Addy playing Hotspur with such a fine and youthful enthusiasm, and with so determined and understanding a belief in the character, as to score with every scene he has.
Summer stock at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey occupied Addy during August and September 1939, however his only known role was in a world premiere of Flight Into China by Pearl S. Buck. He returned to Broadway in November 1939 with Summer Night by Vicki Baum and Benjamin Glazer. Directed by Lee Strasberg with a good cast, the play was critically panned for the writing, which sought to present a Grand Hotel story in the setting of a summer park where a marathon dance is taking place. It closed after just four performances. Flops project an aura onto their unlucky participants; it was five months before Addy found another stage job.
Romeo and Juliet At the time of the 1940 US Census in April, Addy was temporarily staying at a boarding house in San Francisco.1940 United States Federal Census for Robert Addy, California > San Francisco > San Francisco > 38-175, retrieved from Ancestry.com Laurence Olivier was producing, directing, and starring in Romeo and Juliet, with Vivien Leigh as his co-star;They had each recently divorced their spouses but would not marry until August 1940. the opening tryout was at the Geary Theater in San Francisco. Addy, playing Benvolio, performed in the week-long tryouts in San Francisco and Chicago. Oakland Tribune reviewer Wood Soanes praised the supporting cast, including Addy, but found the two stars underwhelming. Cecil Smith of the Chicago Tribune also thought Addy excellent, but was more nuanced about Olivier and Leigh.
The production went to Broadway on May 9, 1940, at the 51st Street Theater. Addy alone drew praise from critic Arthur Pollock, who was scathing about the two stars and Edmond O'Brien as Mercutio. Reviewer Burns Mantle called Addy and few others "outstanding", but also expressed disappointment with Olivier and Leigh. The production closed in early June 1940 after 36 performances.
Twelfth Night and Battle of Angels After doing some summer stock in Locust Valley, New York and Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Addy was cast in a Theatre Guild production of Twelfth Night when Robert Speaight was called up for wartime service in the UK. This was another Maurice Evans and Margaret Webster collaboration, with Helen Hayes playing Viola and Addy as Orsino.
Though Addy had taken the role of Orsino at short notice, and performed more than creditably, he was to leave it in mid-December 1940. The Theatre Guild had a new work, Battle of Angels, by a then unknown playwright named Tennessee Williams. The play had a leading lady, Miriam Hopkins, but no male lead. Already regarded as a difficult script,In his memoir Magic Curtain (1951), Lawrence Langner says Hopkins became so frustrated with it she threw her copy at him. both the Theatre Guild (specifically Lawrence Langner and Theresa Helburn) and Hopkins settled on Addy "after weeks of desperate searching" and shortly before the scheduled tryout in Boston. Lauren Gilbert took over the role of Orsino in Twelfth Night when Addy signed for Battle of Angels.
The tryout for Battle of Angels opened at the Wilbur Theatre on December 30, 1940, under the direction of Margaret Webster. Initial reviews praised the acting of Hopkins and Addy, but said they were unable to overcome severe problems with the writing: "the play gives the audience the sensation of having been dunked in mire". Boston city officials demanded certain lines be dropped or the play would be closed; Hopkins blasted them for having small minds and praised Williams' writing, but the Theatre Guild decided to shut it down on January 11, 1941.
Having given up a surefire Broadway role for a lead in a brief beleaguered disappointment, Addy was now unemployed. Scant compensation came from columnist George Ross, who noted how successfully Addy had jumped into last-minute roles for Twelfth Night and Battle of Angels. The Theatre Guild found him work in Somewhere in France, which had a preview at the Guild Theatre during late April 1941. It then went to the National Theatre for a tryout run, during which the Theatre Guild announced it would be set aside until the fall for rewrites, by which time Addy had enlisted in the US Army.
Recordings, radio, and early television In a 1939 profile by columnist Robert Francis, Addy revealed that he spent mornings at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), making recordings of plays for their talking book program. He would continue this activity up until he entered military service in 1941.
Addy also used his fine speaking voice for radio programs. While still playing Hotspur on Broadway in March 1939, he also starred in an afternoon WJZ production of Cyrano de Bergerac for its "Great Plays" series, with Martha Scott as his Roxanne. He and Mady Christians took the leads for another "Great Plays" episode in May 1939, this one for Elizabeth the Queen. During November 1939 he played the lead in "Great Plays" version of Romeo and Juliet on WJZ, with Joan Tompkins as his Juliet.
On March 8, 1941, Addy temporarily took over the lead in an hour-long dramatic serial on CBS Radio, Honest Abe, replacing Ray Middleton. The serial aired Saturday mornings and co-starred Muriel Kirkland. Addy's tenure ended one month later, when Henry Hull took over the part. On May 4, 1941, Addy did another "Great Plays" radio program, Prologue to Glory, where he played young Abe Lincoln.
Addy's first known screen performance came from an hour-long production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever on New York experimental television. Broadcast on July 27, 1939, on W2XBS, it also featured Isobel Elsom and Dennis Hoey.
Military service