Northern Calloway

Career

Calloway graduated from New York City's High School of Performing Arts in 1966, and he joined the Lincoln Center Repertory Company the same year. Stage roles he performed include:

Calloway performed in six productions on Broadway from 1968 to 1980.

In 1971, he joined the cast of Sesame Street as David, a role he would hold for eighteen years.

Legal troubles, health problems and final years on Sesame Street

On the morning of September 19, 1980, Calloway was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee. He beat Mary Stagaman, marketing director of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, with an iron rod, causing serious head and rib injuries. He then fled into the suburbs of Nashville, where he smashed a plate-glass window and storm door at one house and did extensive damage to the interior of another—destroying the family's collection of fine crystal, smashing a television set and breaking light bulbs with his bare hands.

He also stole a backpack from a first grader, and smashed a windshield with a rock before fleeing the scene, where witnesses reported him wearing only a Superman T-shirt. He was arrested after hiding out in a couple's garage, screaming, "Help! I'm David from Sesame Street and they're trying to kill me!"

In his authorized history Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, author Michael Davis writes that Calloway's final years on the show were marked by periods of deteriorating health and ability punctuated by episodes of erratic behavior; during these years, he cites that Calloway reportedly bit music coordinator Danny Epstein during an on set fight, and he also states Calloway once appeared unannounced at Alison Bartlett's high school and proposed to her.

By 1987, with executive producer Dulcy Singer becoming increasingly doubtful about Calloway's future with the show, the writers gradually and quietly ended the relationship that the character of David had with Maria Figueroa (Sonia Manzano), which had been in the storyline for several years (Maria soon began a romance with Luis Rodriguez (Emilio Delgado), which resulted in their marriage in May 1988). Eventually, in the spring of 1989, Calloway was dismissed from Sesame Street by Singer, following the aforementioned incident with Danny Epstein. His final appearance was in the 20th season finale, aired May 19, 1989.

Death

On January 9, 1990, Calloway died after going into cardiac arrest, during a violent altercation with a staff physician. He was then taken to Phelps Memorial Hospital in North Tarrytown, where he was pronounced dead at the age of 41. A coroner's report listed Calloway's official cause of death as exhaustive psychosis, now more commonly called excited delirium syndrome (EDS).

A prior marriage to Terri Calloway ended in divorce.

Calloway was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery.