Obit watch: January 26, 2012.

Legendary actor Nicol Williamson passed away on December 16. However, his death was apparently not reported until yesterday.

…during the Broadway run of Paul Rudnick’s 1991 comedy, “I Hate Hamlet,” in which he played the ghost of John Barrymore, he criticized the play in interviews, audibly offered coaching to his fellow actors onstage, and finally, during a staged swordfight, ignored the choreography and smacked the actor Evan Handler with the flat blade of the sword, prompting Mr. Handler to leave the stage and resign.

And:

A young actress who shared the stage with him in 1965 and who spoke to The New York Times said of him: “Drinking, fighting and wenching — God, he’s fabulous!”

(In addition to playing Hamlet and Macbeth, he was also Sherlock Holmes in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”.)

One Response to “Obit watch: January 26, 2012.”

  1. Brian Dunbar says:

    audibly offered coaching to his fellow actors onstage

    It’s not a bad thing to aspire to be so _good_ at one’s trade, such a bad-ass, that you simply _must_ be a dick when others aren’t up to snuff.

    I used to have that. Kinda miss it.