Years active 1952-1994 Name Sydney Walker | Role Actor TV shows New York's Master Chefs | |
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Occupation Stage Actor, Screen Actor, Voice Actor Nominations Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play Movies Prelude to a Kiss, Mrs Doubtfire, Love Story, Getting Even with Dad, Puzzle of a Downfall Child Similar People Polly Holliday, Robert Prosky, Martin Mull, Arthur Hiller, Howard Deutch | ||
Sydney Walker (May 5, 1921 – September 30, 1994) was an American character actor of stage and screen and voice artist, with a career that spanned over five decades
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Early life
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sydney Walker was primarily a stage actor, who had studied mime in Paris, his professional debut was in 1960 and he featured in twenty-eight Broadway plays between 1961 and 1973. In 1967, he was nominated for a Tony Award as "Best Featured Actor in a Play" for his performance The Wild Duck.
Career
Between 1966 and 1969 Sydney Walker was a principal player in Ellis Rabb's APA-Phoenix Repertory Company in New York City working with an extraordinary group including Rosemary Harris, Donald Moffet, Keene Curtis, Paul Sparer, Nancy Marchand, all of whom were to have significant careers in movies, television and theatre.
As a character actor in motion pictures, he appeared as Dr. Shapely in the 1970 blockbuster film Love Story, and also appeared in The Way We Live Now and Puzzle of a Downfall Child the same year. His most prominent film role came in the 1992 movie Prelude to a Kiss, in which he was featured as a dying elderly man who switches bodies with a newlywed portrayed by Meg Ryan. He had a small role in the 1993 hit Mrs. Doubtfire as the Muni bus driver who finds a small attraction to Mrs. Doubtfire, and played Mr. Wankmueller in the 1994 Macaulay Culkin comedy Getting Even with Dad. He also acted in the television soap opera The Guiding Light for the 1970–71 season.
Walker also provided the voice for the children's toy "Grampa Time" (a toy that had a nightlight and told bedtime stories). His many television appearances included The Phil Silvers Show For a good part of his career (late 1970s through the 1980s), Walker was a teacher and principal actor at the Geary Theatre in San Francisco. He taught acting at the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) there. He also immortalized roles such as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Lord Porteus in Somerset Maugham's The Circle, and Ash in The National Health by Peter Nichols, among many others.
Death
Walker died of cancer in San Francisco, California, in 1994.