Bert Lahr

Irving Lahrheim (August 13, 1895 – December 4, 1967), known professionally as Bert Lahr, was an American actor and comedian. He was best known for his role as the Cowardly Lion, as well as his counterpart Kansas farmworker "Zeke", in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. He was well known for his quick-witted humor and his work in burlesque and vaudeville and on Broadway.

Early life, family and education Lahr was born Irving Lahrheim on August 13, 1895, at First Avenue and 81st Street, He was the son of Jacob Lahrheim (1870–1947), an upholsterer, and Augusta Bessen (1871–1932), daughter of Mildred Bessen (1844–1911) and Edward H. Bessen (1841–1902). His parents were German-Jewish immigrants.

He attended P.S. 77 and Morris High School,

Lahr reprised his role in a short-lived Broadway run, co-starring with E. G. Marshall as Vladimir. This time, it was with a new director, Herbert Berghof, who had met with Samuel Beckett, the playwright, in Europe and discussed the play. The set was cleared, and Lahr was allowed more freedom in his performance. Advertisements were taken out urging intellectuals to support the play, which was a success and received enthusiastic ovations from the audience. Lahr was praised and though he claimed he did not understand the play, others would disagree and say he understood it a great deal. which is also the largest collection of television artifacts and memorabilia in the world.

In June 2013, Lahr's original reading script for The Wizard of Oz, bequeathed to his great-grandson, was appraised with an insurance value of $150,000 on PBS's Antiques Roadshow in an episode filmed in Detroit, Michigan.

Television Lahr occasionally appeared on television, including NBC's live version of the Cole Porter musical Let's Face It (1954), the 1964 Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Fantasticks, and occasional appearances as the mystery guest on What's My Line? (for example, December 30, 1956).

He performed in commercials, including a memorable series for Lay's potato chips during its long running "Betcha can't eat just one" campaign with Lahr appearing in different costumes. He performed in classical works on television adaptations of Androcles and the Lion and the School for Wives (1956). He played Moonface Martin in a television version of Anything Goes, with Ethel Merman reprising her role as Reno Sweeney and Frank Sinatra appearing as Billy Crocker. In 1959, he played Mr. O'Malley in an adaptation of Barnaby for the anthology series General Electric Theater. In 1963, he appeared as Go-Go Garrity in the episode "Is Mr. Martian Coming Back" on NBC's medical drama The Eleventh Hour.

Other work

In the late 1950s, he supplied the voice of a bloodhound in "Old Whiff," a short cartoon produced by Mike Todd which featured the olfactory Smell-O-Vision process developed for Todd's feature film Scent of Mystery (1960).

In 1964, Lahr won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his role in the musical Foxy. At the American Shakespeare Festival he played Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), for which he received the Best Shakespearean Actor of the Year Award.

"Laughter is never too far away from tears," he reflected on his comedy. Lahr said: "You will cry at a peddler much easier than you would cry at a woman dressed in ermine who had just lost her whole family." Jane Lahr is an author and literary editor who was married to drama critic Martin Gottfried.

Lahr was an avid golfer and an embroidery enthusiast. He was considered a serious personality offstage, prone to melancholy and, like his mother, hypochondria.

Death Lahr died on December 4, 1967, at the age of 72. Around the time of his death, he was filming The Night They Raided Minsky's. The official cause of death was listed as pneumonia. Lahr had been hospitalized on November 21 for what was reported as a back ailment. However, his son John explained that although two weeks earlier, Bert "had returned home at 2 a.m., chilled and feverish, from the damp studio where The Night They Raided Minsky's was being filmed," and although "newspapers reported the cause of death as pneumonia...he succumbed to cancer, a disease he feared but never knew he had." (Bert Lahr's father had also died of cancer.) 1964 Best Actor in a Musical Foxy