August 17, 2026: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler

On this date fifty years ago, the versatile and delightful actor William Redfield passed away from a respiratory ailment complicated by leukemia. It should have been a great year for the New York native who, as Billie Redfield, first made his Broadway debut in 1936 at nine years old in a forgotten comedy titled Swing Your Lady! With a particularly juice role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1976 should have been a great year for him. The film had just swept the top five Academy Awards in April and, under ordinary circumstances, would have raised Redfield's profile by being in a genuine hit. Ironic, since he'd been a working actor for forty years.

Born to an orchestra conductor and a former Ziegfeld Follies Girl, Redfield had show business in his blood. By twelve, he was cast in his fourth Broadway show, the original company of Thornton Wilder’s classic drama Our Town. By fourteen, he was the lead ingénue in Junior Miss, a big hit back in its day, directed by the estimable Moss Hart. As an adult, Redfield was famously directed by Sir John Gielgud as Guildenstern in a 1964 production of Hamlet that Richard Burton brought to Broadway. This was at the peak of Burton’s reign as a superstar and during his fresh (and first) marriage to the most famous woman in the world, Elizabeth Taylor (they officially tied the knot between the Toronto and New York engagement).

While out of town, and through its 137 performances on Broadway, Redfield dutifully kept a diary (in the form of letters to friends) of what it was like to be in this Hamlet, as well as his musings upon his life in the theatre. Later, he published it as Letters from an Actor, one of the most charming and hilarious backstage books ever written. As entertaining a book on the theatre ever written, it is well worth finding. For years, I would buy used hardcover copies on Ebay and hand them out as gifts. I still do.

​​Redfield was a shining example of what is known as “an actor’s actor,” meaning someone highly talented and a skilled professional, specifically by his peers. He was looked up to by his fellow players, many of whom were never happier than when he was a part of their company (it wasn’t surprising that he and Burton became fast friends). Cast time and again in everything from dramas to comedies to musicals to classical theatre, he also excelled at playing ordinary guys, perhaps most memorably mimicking the finicky Tony Randall as Felix Unger’s brother, Floyd, in a memorable episode of TV's The Odd Couple. By his own personal count, Redfield estimated he had been in over 2,000 stage, radio, television and films.

Having as long a career in the New York theatre as he did, Redfield knew nearly everyone and befriended some of the great artists of the day. Counting Marlon Brando among them, the pair played opposite one another in summer stock at the height of the actor's career. The year was 1953 and Brando was fast becoming the most important movie star in the world (A Streetcar Name Desire came out in 1951, Viva Zapata in 1952, and Julius Caesar in 1953). But with his roots on the stage, he was tempted (one final time, as it turned out) by the chance to play in George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man in summer stock.

Adam Redfield who, like his father, played Broadway himself (Tony nominated for Hugh Leonard's A Life in 1981), recently told me some stories of his dad's times with Brando on this project:

"I think Marlon had good but confused motives on what he was trying to do with Arms and the Man. I think he had the idea that it might turn into a running theater company. But Marlon wouldn't have ever put in the time or effort for such an endeavor. A more modest goal was just give some work to his friends during the summer. This was welcome news for my father. He was still working in the theatre but his income had fallen because he was blacklisted in TV and Radio. I think some of the other actors were blacklisted as well. If that was one of Marlon's motives, then good for Marlon!"

"But with Marlon there is often an unserious aspect, and I think he really wanted to have a good time with his New York friends. That was why he was playing Sergius instead of Bluntschli. Sergius didn't have as many lines. This worked fine for my father since he ended up playing the lead." 

"At least on the first stop on the tour, Marlon and my father shared a dressing room. Now, Marlon was not one to do a lot of 'methody-type' of pre-show preparation, so my father was surprised to see Marlon already in full costume and make up at half hour. Marlon further surprised my father by excusing himself from the dressing room so as to get in character. He confessed to being nervous. All of this was very out of the ordinary for Marlon but there wasn't anything wrong with it either, so Marlon left the dressing room. Over the next 10 or 15 minutes, my father started to slowly put on the costume, and it was an elaborate costume. The last step was to put on the boots, and it was then he realized why Marlon had beaten a hasty retreat. Marlon had nailed my father's boot to the floor!"

"And Brando never did get his lines down perfectly. At one performance, he went up completely. He walked to the edge of the stage and full of Brando-esque emotion said something to the effect of, 'and for this reason. All my soul, all my heart, all of my mind . . . will BOW DOWN . . . BEFORE CHRIST!'  He then cued for a blackout. This mini oration of his made absolutely no sense but it garnered a shouting, stomping standing ovation."

The two friends would work together one more time in the doomed Morituri (shortened from The Saboteur: Code Name—Morituri), a 1965 film that sported the tagline: "Brando and Brynner Teach the Nazis an Explosive Lesson!"

My own personal experiences seeing Redfield on Broadway were in two plays of minor importance: one ran for four days with the catchy title, The Love Suicide at Scofield Barracks (and they wondered why no one came); the other, later that same year, was the monumental disaster, Dude: the Highway Life, to which I devote an entire chapter in my book, Up in the Cheap Seats. Dude has since entered the annals of Broadway history as the most expensive flop of its time. It lost $800,000, a lot of money today, but a ton back then.

By opening night, Redfield was no longer associated with Dude. However, I saw him during one of its previews. He was not a happy camper. He looked as confused as everyone else in the production.

To see just how good an actor Redfield was, one needs no proof other than his one scene in Elaine May’s offbeat and truly wonderful film, A New Leaf (1971). As Becket, Walter Matthau’s exasperated accountant, Redfield’s valiant attempts to explain to a deluded and grandiose millionaire that he is now flat broke, begins calmly, then grows into disbelief, moves on to frustration, until finally boiling over in riotous anger. It is a sight to behold — and savor. Comic acting at its very best.

In an often difficult profession, Redfield was a survivor. That is, until the Leukemia that killed him proved too tough a battle, ending his life at age forty-nine. It’s an awful shame, as his role in Cuckoo’s Nest brought him great reviews and newfound acclaim. He was gone ten months after its release, though he continued to work in film and television right up to the end—ever the “actor’s actor.”

Ron Fassler is the author of The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements. For news and “Theatre Yesterday and Today” columns when they break, please subscribe.