Mineola’s Brian Dennehy played an extraordinary range of roles off-screen as well as on, metamorphosing from football star to Marine to stockbroker before launching a five-decade career as a wildly successful film, television and stage actor.
He died April 15, in New Haven, Conn., at age 81. The cause of his death was cardiac arrest as a result of sepsis, his agent, Brian Mann, told The Chicago Tribune.
Dennehy is perhaps best known for his Tony Award-winning performance in “Death of a Salesman” on Broadway in 1999. He also notably had film roles in “First Blood” in 1982, “Gorky Park” in 1983, “Cocoon” in 1985 and “Presumed Innocent” in 1990.
Family, friends and co-workers voiced their sadness at Dennehy’s death.
“It is with heavy hearts we announce that our father, Brian passed away last night from natural causes, not Covid-related,” wrote his daughter, Elizabeth Dennehy, last Thursday. “Larger than life, generous to a fault, a proud and devoted father and grandfather, he will be missed by his wife Jennifer, family and many friends.”
Actor Michael McKean described him as “brilliant and versatile” and “a powerhouse actor.”
“Just devastated to learn that the magnificent Brian Dennehy has died,” actor Mia Farrow tweeted. “There is no one I enjoyed working with more. And there are few friends as valued in my life.”
Dennehy was born to Edward and Hannah Dennehy on July 9, 1938, in Bridgeport, Conn. They later moved to Brooklyn, and then to Mineola when Dennehy was 12.
He attended Chaminade High School and then went to Columbia University on a football scholarship, but left school to join the Marines.
Dennehy married Judith Scheff in 1959 and had two children. The couple later divorced, and Dennehy married costume designer Jennifer Arnott in 1989.
After leaving the Marines he returned to Columbia, where he completed his bachelor’s degree in 1965 while holding various positions, such as butcher and truck driver, to support his family.
Dennehy also worked for Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker prior to transitioning into acting.
“I was sitting in the bullpen at Merrill Lynch down at Liberty Plaza and 30 guys got off the elevator with their attaché cases and headed for their desks,” he told the Columbia publication. “I thought to myself, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ And I did. Eventually, I was an overnight success—after 15 years.”
He spent years acting in community theater productions on Long Island.
“The thing was,” he told Newsday in 1991, “you could work in community theater for 30 years and no one would spot you, no matter how good you were. Eventually, I had to take a chance in New York.”
His acting career took off after an agent saw Dennehy in a showcase production of “Ivanov” at the Impossible Ragtime Theater and got him a role in the movie “Semi-Tough.” He subsequently nabbed a series of roles in movies and television shows.
In 1990 he received the first of six Emmy nominations for the TV movie “A Killing in a Small Town.”
Dennehy was lauded for his stage acting as well as his onscreen roles.
“He was a towering, fearless actor taking on the greatest dramatic roles of the 20th century,” said Robert Falls, artistic director of the Goodman Theater in Chicago, where Dennehy played many roles, in an interview with The New York Times. “They were mountains that had to be climbed, and he had no problem throwing himself into climbing them.”
Throughout his long and varied career, Dennehy won two Tony awards, one for his role in “Death of a Salesman” and another for “Long Day’s Journey into Night.”
He has more recently held recurring roles in TV series “Public Morals,” “Hap and Leonard” and “The Blacklist.”
He is survived by his wife Jennifer Arnott and their two children, Cormac and Sarah, as well as by three daughters, Elizabeth, Kathleen and Deirdre from his first marriage to Judith Scheff, and several grandchildren.
