John McMartin (1929-2016)
Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 11:00AM Good lord but 2016 has been rough on the showbiz community. It's as if the Grim Reaper is trying to meet some new end days quota starting with entertainers.
John McMartin has passed away at 86 from cancer. While the name might not wring a bell to everyone surely the face will. In his 60 year career he worked across all three actor's mediums regularly: stage, tv, and film...
His breakout work occurred in the late 60s and early 70s when he reprised his Tony-nominated role for the film version of Sweet Charity (1969) starring Shirley Maclaine and chased that with his most famous creation "Benjamin Stone" in the original Broadway cast of Steven Sondheim's Follies in 1971. But he worked frequently thereafter. A musical comedy regular he was nominated for 5 Tony Awards but never won (that used to be a record but Danny Burstein just became the most nominated but never winning performer with six this year).
McMartin's key film roles included Blow Out, Pennies From Heaven, Who's That Girl and three Robert Redford pictures (All the President's Men, Brubaker, and Legal Eagles). His face is also familiar from television where he made frequent appearances or had recurring roles on shows like As the World Turns, Falcon Crest, Murder She Wrote, Law & Order, and Further Tales of the City.
John McMartin in Sweet Charity (1969)
His most recent and quite funny gig was as as a dementia ridden wealthy widower in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt episode "Kimmy Goes on a Date". It's sad that he wasn't Guest Actor nominated at the Emmys for that one last year.
Exit Music: Benjamin Stone's signature song "The Road You Didn't Take" which McMartin reprised just a handful of years ago in his Eighties and still in good voice...
Reader Comments (4)
I'm sure others will remember him better for his film and TV work, but to me John McMartin will always be the perfect Ben Stone in Follies, and a wonderful narrator in the Into the Woods revival. What a voice! Such depth and character in his singing and speech. RIP
I will miss him, he always seemed to be the American Male archtype - kind of like Jack Lemmon.
It's weird that almost every major nominee at the Tony nominees with 5+ nods/no wins has a connection to Follies:
McMartin-In the original production, Nominated
Jan Maxwell-In the Broadway revival, Nominated
Danny Burstein-In the Broadway revival, Nominated
Tom Aldredge-Husband of Theoni Aldredge, Nominated for revival
Dana Ivey and George C. Scott are the only two without a connection.
Another one of those instantly recognizable "Hey! It's that guy!" faces gone. Very sad.
He was in so many things I'm sure he's popping up on TV everyday in some rerun or another and I know All the President's Men is playing on TCM tonight so he has a sort of immortality.