Cliff Gorman was an American stage and screen actor. He won an Obie award

Obie Award

The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...

 in 1968 for the stage presentation of The Boys in the Band

The Boys in the Band (play)

The Boys in the Band is a play by Mart Crowley. The off-Broadway production, directed by Robert Moore, opened on April 14, 1968 at Theater Four, where it ran for 1,001 performances, an extremely healthy run for both an off-Broadway production, and one not geared to a mainstream audience...

, and went on to reprise his role in the 1970 film version

The Boys in the Band

The Boys in the Band is a 1970 American drama film directed by William Friedkin. The screenplay by Mart Crowley is based on his Off Broadway play of the same title, Crowley penned a sequel to the play years later entitled The Men From The Boys...

.

He won a Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 in 1972 for playing Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce

Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...

 in the play Lenny. Although the film version

Lenny (film)

Lenny is a 1974 American biographical film about the comedian Lenny Bruce, starring Dustin Hoffman and directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay by Julian Barry is based on his play of the same name.-Plot:...

, directed by Bob Fosse

Bob Fosse

Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...

, featured Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....

, Gorman was recruited to portray a Lenny-like character in a side-story in Fosse's film All That Jazz

All That Jazz

All That Jazz is a 1979 American musical film directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse is a semi-autobiographical fantasy based on aspects of Fosse's life and career as dancer, choreographer and director. The film was inspired by Bob Fosse's manic effort to edit his...

. In 1984 he co-starred as Lt. Andrews in the film Angel

Angel (1984 film)

Angel is a 1984 film directed by Robert Vincent O'Neill, and written by O'Neill with Joseph Michael Cala. It was released by New World Pictures.-Plot:...

. Noteworthy are his roles in movies like An Unmarried Woman

An Unmarried Woman

An Unmarried Woman is a 1978 American comedy-drama film that tells the story of the wealthy New York wife Erica Benton whose “perfect” life is shattered when her stockbroker husband Martin leaves her for a younger woman. The film documents Erica's attempts at being single again, where she suffers...

 with Jill Clayburgh

Jill Clayburgh

Jill Clayburgh was an American actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over.-Personal life:...

, Hoffa

Hoffa

Hoffa is a 1992 biographical film directed by Danny DeVito and written by David Mamet, based on the life of Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Jack Nicholson plays Hoffa, and Danny DeVito plays Hoffa's fictional longtime friend Robert "Bobby" Ciaro, an amalgamation of several Hoffa associates over...

 with Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson

John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...

 and Danny De Vito and Night and the City

Night and the City

Night and the City is a film noir based on the novel by Gerald Kersh, directed by Jules Dassin, and starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney. Shot on location in London, the plot evolves around an ambitious hustler whose plans keep going wrong....

 with Robert De Niro. His TV work included performances in series like Law and Order

Law and Order

Law and Order may refer to:In politics:*Law and order , a term common in political debate and discussion, generally indicating support of a strict criminal justice system*Law and Order Offensive Party, a minor German political party...

, Murder, She Wrote

Murder, She Wrote

Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...

and the 1970's drama Police Story

Police Story

Police Story is an anthology television crime drama that aired on NBC from 1973 through 1978. The show was the brainchild of author and former policeman Joseph Wambaugh and represented a major step forward in the realistic depiction of police work and violence on network TV...

, written by former LAPD Detective Sergeant Joseph Wambaugh

Joseph Wambaugh

Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. is a bestselling American writer known for his fictional and non-fictional accounts of police work in the United States...

.

Gorman and his wife cared for his fellow Boys in the Band

The Boys in the Band

The Boys in the Band is a 1970 American drama film directed by William Friedkin. The screenplay by Mart Crowley is based on his Off Broadway play of the same title, Crowley penned a sequel to the play years later entitled The Men From The Boys...

performer Robert La Tourneaux

Robert La Tourneaux

Robert La Tourneaux was an American actor best known for his role of Cowboy, the good-natured but dim hustler hired as a birthday present for a gay man, in the original Off-Broadway production and 1970 film version of The Boys in the Band.-Biography:La Tourneaux made his Broadway theatre debut in...

 in the last few months of his battle against AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

, until La Tourneaux's death on June 3, 1986.

Gorman died of leukemia

Leukemia

Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...

 in 2002, aged 65, although his final film, Kill the Poor

Kill the Poor (film)

Kill the Poor is director Alan Taylor's screen adaptation of a novel by Joel Rose. The film is set in Manhattan's Alphabet City in the early 1980s, when the neighborhood was a center of illegal drug activity...

, was not released until 2006. He was survived by his wife, Gayle Gorman.

External links