Tony Winner Brian Bedford Dead at 80

Tony winner Brian Bedford, who last appeared on the Broadway stage as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, died on January 13 at the age of 80. The cause was cancer, according to the New York Times.

Born on February 16, 1935 in West Riding of Yorkshire, Bedford grew up in a home with no hot water, where two of his brothers died of tuberculosis. In a 2011 interview with the New York Times, he recalled hiding in his childhood home’s bathroom rehearsing lines he heard on the radio. At the age of 15, he left school to join an amateur theater group. About two years later, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Bedford made his West End debut in 1956, in Sally Benson’s The Young and the Beautiful, based on stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Three years later, he appeared on the Great White Way for the first time in Five Finger Exercise. He went on to star in a number of Broadway shows, including Lord Pengo, The Unknown Soldier and His Wife, The Cocktail Party, The Misanthrope and Private Lives before headlining The School for Wives, which earned him a Tony Award.

For nearly 30 years, Bedford maintained a celebrated career at Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival as a performer and director. He first appeared in Measure for Measure in 1975, and went on to appear in a number of productions, including Much Ado About Nothing, The Seagull, Arms and the Man and The Tempest. He concluded his career there by directing and starring in Molière’s The Misanthrope.

It was at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival that Bedford premiered his performance as Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The production, which he also directed, transferred to Broadway in 2011 and earned him his seventh and final Tony nomination.

Bedford received additional Tony nominations for Two Shakespearean Actors, Timon of Athens, The Molière Comedies, London Assurance and Tartuffe. His screen work includes Miracle in Soho, Grand Prix and Disney’s Robin Hood, for which he provided the voice of the title character.

Bedford is survived by his husband and partner of 30 years, fellow actor Tim MacDonald.