LOS ANGELES–Character actor Booth Colman, who had a long career in movies and TV, died at Cedars Sinai Hospital Dec. 15. He was 91. MSTies may recall that he played Mories in the movie “World Without End,” which was riffed in MST3K’s first live show, in Minneapolis.
Colman was born in Portland, Oregon, and as a child actor in local productions became active in the early radio programming. He attended the Universities of Washington and Michigan and was often involved with campus theater. After Army service during World War II he went to New York and got a foothold in Broadway theater. He appeared in Irwin Shaw’s war drama “The Assassin” and was invited to join the prestigious Maurice Evans company and the long running “Hamlet”. Other Broadway productions included “Tonight at 8:30”, “The Winslow Boy” with Basil Rathbone, “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” with Fredric March and several long tours of “The Hasty Heart”, “Mary Stuart” and the Robert Shaw Chorale.
In Hollywood he began with Howard Hawks’ “The Big Sky” and has played in fifty subsequent features between “Julius Caesar” and “Norma Rae”, including three Peter Ustinov production and a John Wayne western.
He Followed his old chief, Maurice Evans, in the role of Dr. Zaius in the popular “Planet of the Apes” series.
Every year for the past sixteen he has gone to the Meadow Brook Theatre in the Detroit area to play Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” He has also appeared at the Meadow Brook in a number of other plays which include “The Andersonville Trial” (twice, 1971 and 1989), “A Man for All Seasons,” “The Merchant of Venice” and “Inherit the Wind” (twice, 1974 and 1990). He also appeared in dozens of TV shows,
For more information, visit boothcolman.com.