Misplaced Pages

Lester Rawlins

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
American actor (1924–1988)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Lester Rawlins" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Lester Rawlins (September 24, 1924 – March 22, 1988) was an American stage, screen, and television actor. He graduated from the Carnegie Mellon College of Drama in 1950 with a BFA.

Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, Rawlins appeared in off-Broadway productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Winterset, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Nightride, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

His Broadway credits included A Man for All Seasons and Da, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. Rawlins also won Obie Awards for his performance in the 1964 off-Broadway production of the play The Old Glory by the poet Robert Lowell and for his performances in off-Broadway productions of Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow and Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.

On television, Rawlins had recurring roles on The Defenders, Kojak, The Secret Storm, and Ryan's Hope. His feature films included Diary of a Mad Housewife and They Might Be Giants. Rawlins was a regular on the CBS soap opera, The Edge of Night for several years, where he played the role of wealthy Orin Hillyer.

He also could be heard on television and radio commercials, and was most notably the voice-over for the Dunkin' Donuts TV and radio advertising campaign created by the New York advertising agency Ally & Gargano.

Death

Rawlins died of cardiac arrest in New York City in 1988.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1970 Diary of a Mad Housewife Dr. Linstrom
1971 They Might Be Giants Blevins
1975 Starsky & Hutch C.J. Woodfield
1976 God Told Me To Board Chairman
1977 A Secret Space Kevin King
1983 Lovesick Silent Patient

References

  1. CMU School of Drama: Notable Alumni Archived 2015-08-03 at archive.today, drama.cmu.edu; accessed June 8, 2015.
  2. Lester Rawlins at the Lucille Lortel Archives, lortel.org; accessed June 8, 2015.
  3. "The Old Glory Revival, Article in Playbill". Playbill.com. 2011-09-22. Archived from the original on 2012-01-29. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
  4. "NY Times Obituary". The New York Times. 1988-03-29. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
  5. Lester Rawlins at the Internet Broadway Database
  6. Lester Rawlins at IMDb

External links

Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play
1949–1975
1976–2000
2001–present
Categories: