Lester Rawlins
Lester Rawlins (September 24, 1924 – March 22, 1988) was an American stage, screen, and television actor. He graduated from the Carnegie Mellon College of Drama in 1950 with a BFA.[1]
Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, Rawlins appeared in off-Broadway productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Winterset, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Nightride, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.[2]
His Broadway credits included A Man for All Seasons and Da, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. Rawlins also won Obie Awards for his performance in the 1964 off-Broadway production of the play The Old Glory by the poet Robert Lowell[3] and for his performances in off-Broadway productions of Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow and Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.[4][5]
On television, Rawlins had recurring roles on The Defenders, Kojak, The Secret Storm, and Ryan's Hope. His feature films included Diary of a Mad Housewife and They Might Be Giants. Rawlins was a regular on the CBS soap opera, The Edge of Night for several years, where he played the role of wealthy Orin Hillyer.[6]
He also could be heard on television and radio commercials, and was most notably the voice-over for the Dunkin' Donuts TV and radio advertising campaign created by the New York advertising agency Ally & Gargano.
Death
Rawlins died of cardiac arrest in New York City in 1988.[citation needed]
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1970 | Diary of a Mad Housewife | Dr. Linstrom | |
1971 | They Might Be Giants | Blevins | |
1975 | Starsky & Hutch | C.J. Woodfield | |
1976 | God Told Me To | Board Chairman | |
1977 | A Secret Space | Kevin King | |
1983 | Lovesick | Silent Patient |
References
- ^ CMU School of Drama: Notable Alumni Archived 2015-08-03 at archive.today, drama.cmu.edu; accessed June 8, 2015.
- ^ Lester Rawlins at the Lucille Lortel Archives, lortel.org; accessed June 8, 2015.
- ^ "The Old Glory Revival, Article in Playbill". Playbill.com. 2011-09-22. Archived from the original on 2012-01-29. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
- ^ "NY Times Obituary". The New York Times. 1988-03-29. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
- ^ Lester Rawlins at the Internet Broadway Database
- ^ Lester Rawlins at IMDb
External links
- Lester Rawlins at the Internet Broadway Database
- Lester Rawlins at IMDb
- Lester Rawlins at the Lucille Lortel Archives
- New York Times obituary, March 29, 1988
- v
- t
- e
- Arthur Kennedy (1949)
- Eli Wallach (1951)
- John Cromwell (1952)
- John Williams (1953)
- John Kerr (1954)
- Francis L. Sullivan (1955)
- Ed Begley (1956)
- Frank Conroy (1957)
- Henry Jones (1958)
- Charlie Ruggles (1959)
- Roddy McDowall (1960)
- Martin Gabel (1961)
- Walter Matthau (1962)
- Alan Arkin (1963)
- Hume Cronyn (1964)
- Jack Albertson (1965)
- Patrick Magee (1966)
- Ian Holm (1967)
- James Patterson (1968)
- Al Pacino (1969)
- Ken Howard (1970)
- Paul Sand (1971)
- Vincent Gardenia (1972)
- John Lithgow (1973)
- Ed Flanders (1974)
- Frank Langella (1975)
- Edward Herrmann (1976)
- Jonathan Pryce (1977)
- Lester Rawlins (1978)
- Michael Gough (1979)
- David Rounds (1980)
- Brian Backer (1981)
- Zakes Mokae (1982)
- Matthew Broderick (1983)
- Joe Mantegna (1984)
- Barry Miller (1985)
- John Mahoney (1986)
- John Randolph (1987)
- BD Wong (1988)
- Boyd Gaines (1989)
- Charles Durning (1990)
- Kevin Spacey (1991)
- Laurence Fishburne (1992)
- Stephen Spinella (1993)
- Jeffrey Wright (1994)
- John Glover (1995)
- Ruben Santiago-Hudson (1996)
- Owen Teale (1997)
- Tom Murphy (1998)
- Frank Wood (1999)
- Roy Dotrice (2000)
- Robert Sean Leonard (2001)
- Frank Langella (2002)
- Denis O'Hare (2003)
- Brían F. O'Byrne (2004)
- Liev Schreiber (2005)
- Ian McDiarmid (2006)
- Billy Crudup (2007)
- Jim Norton (2008)
- Roger Robinson (2009)
- Eddie Redmayne (2010)
- John Benjamin Hickey (2011)
- Christian Borle (2012)
- Courtney B. Vance (2013)
- Mark Rylance (2014)
- Richard McCabe (2015)
- Reed Birney (2016)
- Michael Aronov (2017)
- Nathan Lane (2018)
- Bertie Carvel (2019)
- David Alan Grier (2020/21)
- Jesse Tyler Ferguson (2022)
- Brandon Uranowitz (2023)