Actor Edward Kirk Herrmann died on December 31, 2014 of brain cancer, he was 71, he was also a director, writer, and comedian, who was nominated for many acting roles, and he was born on the 21st of July 1943 in Washington, District of Columbia.
His mother was the former Jean O’Connor; his father, John Anthony Herrmann, was an engineer who worked for automobile and railroad companies.
He grew up in Grosse Pointe, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, and later graduated from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, where he indulged an incipient Anglophilia, conceived a passion for 17th-century British playwrights and poets, and began acting.
He later spent three years in Texas, at the Dallas Theater Center, which he once called a kind of “medieval guild” where everyone was responsible for every aspect of a production. Herrmann won a Tony Award in 1976 for his performance in the George Bernard Shaw play Mrs.
Warren’s Profession, and an Emmy in 1999 for a guest role in The Practice. He was Emmy-nominated five times in total, including two nominations for playing the former US president Franklin D Roosevelt, whom he also played in the 1982 musical Annie.
Herrmann was on “Gilmore Girls” for its entire run and recently appeared in several episodes of “The Good Wife.”
He was also nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the ’70’s, was the head vampire in “The Lost Boys,” and famously starred alongside Macaulay Culkin in “Richie Rich.”
His first marriage, to Leigh Curran, ended in divorce. In addition to his son, Mr. Herrmann is survived by his wife, the former Star Lynn Hayner, whom he married in 1994; two daughters, Ryen Alaire Herrmann and Emma Madison Herrmann; a brother, John; and a granddaughter.
He played Nelson Rockefeller in the 1995 Oliver Stone film “Nixon.” Early in his career his best known role was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a pair of television movies in the 1970s, “Eleanor and Franklin,” about Roosevelt’s courtship of his distant cousin (played by Jane Alexander), and “Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years.”
He also recorded dozens of audiobooks, including “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, Laura Hillenbrand’s best-seller “Unbroken,” David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, Walter Isaacson’s “Einstein: His Life and Universe” and Roger Ebert’s memoir “Life Itself.”
Mr. Herrmann appeared on Broadway a handful of other times, including in a 1980 revival of “The Philadelphia Story,” in which he played opposite Blythe Danner; and “Plenty” (1983), David Hare’s drama about disillusionment in postwar Britain seen through the lens of a withering marriage, for which he was nominated for a second Tony.
Between his numerous stage, screen, and TV assignments, Golden Voice Edward Herrmann manages to record a large number of audiobooks. AudioFile contributing editor Yuri Rasovsky has directed him in two audio plays (THE MALTESE FALCON , an Audie winner, and SAINT JOAN ) and an audiobook ( THE BIRTHING HOUSE ).
“The guy’s great to work with,” the audio dramatist told us, “imaginative, down-to-earth, responsive, and blessed with sharp understanding and great technique.”