Brian Dennehy, A Tony-Winning Actor And Chaminade Grad, Dies

MINEOLA, NY — Brian Dennehy, the Tony Award-winning actor who was once inspired to try out for drama club while attending Chaminade High School in Mineola, has died. He was 81. Dennehy died Wednesday night of natural causes in New Haven, Connecticut, The Associated Press reported, citing the actor's representatives.

Dennehy was a veteran of both stage and screen, starring in such films as "Cocoon," "First Blood," "Tommy Boy," "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet" and "M*A*S*H," as well as putting on an award-winning performance for his portrayal of Willie Loman in "Death of a Salesman."

Dennehy was born July 9, 1938, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the first of three sons. As Patch previously reported, Dennehy moved with his family to Mineola to attend the private all-boys Roman Catholic prep school Chaminade before heading onto Columbia University on a scholarship at Columbia University. While a member of the Chaminade football team, coach Chris Sweeny inspired Dennehy to try out for the drama club.

"Chaminade was an extraordinary place to go to school and I'll always be grateful to it," Dennehy previously told Patch. "Chris Sweeny... started me off acting, so he's responsible for all this."

The burly actor was known for his broad frame, booming voice and ability to play both good guys and bad guys. Dennehy won two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe and was nominated for six Emmys. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2010.

"What this actor goes for is close to an everyman quality, with a grand emotional expansiveness that matches his monumental physique," wrote Ben Brantley in his review of the play for The New York Times. "Yet these emotions ring so unerringly true that Mr. Dennehy seems to kidnap you by force, trapping you inside Willy’s psyche."

He was awarded another Tony in 2003 for his role in O’Neill’s "Long Day’s Journey into Night." At the podium, after thanking his family, co-stars and producers and complementing his competitors, he said: “The words of Eugene O’Neill — they’ve got to be heard. They’ve got to be heard, and heard and heard. And thank you so much for giving us the chance to enunciate them.”

He played serial murderer John Wayne Gacy in the 1991 TV movie “To Catch a Killer” and union leader Jackie Presser in the HBO special “Teamster Boss” a year later. “I try to play villains as if they’re good guys and good guys as if they’re villains,” he said in 1992.

He worked deep into his 70s, in such projects as SundanceTV’s “Hap and Leonard,” the film “The Seagull” with Elisabeth Moss and Annette Bening and the play “Endgame” by Samuel Beckett at the Long Wharf Theatre. His last foray on Broadway was in “Love Letters” opposite Mia Farrow in 2014.

He is survived by his second wife, costume designer Jennifer Arnott and their two children, Cormac and Sarah. He also is survived by three daughters — Elizabeth, Kathleen and Deirdre — from a previous marriage to Judith Scheff.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.