George S. Irving

December 26, 2016 10:29 AM

George S. Irving has died. Irving first appeared on Broadway in 1943 in Oklahoma!, only to be drafted into service two days later. He spent more than 60 years on stage, recently reprising a role he created in "So Long, 174th Street", which has been retitled, "Enter Laughing."
posted by roomthreeseventeen (13 comments total)

2016 still going for it


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posted by twidget at 10:37 AM on December 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

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I take solace in the reality that every day there's all sorts of wonderful people being born. We just don't know to celebrate them yet.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 10:40 AM on December 26, 2016 [12 favorites]

I think if we actually plotted 2016 on a graph, we might find an exponential increase such that by midnight on 12/31, EVERYONE will be dead. Bah.

(And I am one of the superstitious ones who isn't saying "don't let the door hit you on the way out, 2016," because WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE SETTING US UP FOR IN 2017? Just stop it!)
posted by instamatic at 11:07 AM on December 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Acturarial Interlude: For those born in 1922 and still alive - - 2016 has a higher than average probability of being the year of your death. 2017 will be even higher. We return you now to our regularly scheduled 2016 bashing...
posted by fairmettle at 11:11 AM on December 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

Here's an interesting article from the BBC about the death rate in 2016.
posted by HuronBob at 11:15 AM on December 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

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is someone famous just going to die every day until 2017?

Quite possibly. Some nervousness here in England as the (90 year old) Queen has not been seen out for a while due to illness of some kind.
posted by Wordshore at 11:32 AM on December 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

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posted by 4ster at 12:18 PM on December 26, 2016

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posted by Joey Michaels at 12:29 PM on December 26, 2016

I was probably at the stage door of Me and My Girl to say hi and take pictures and get autographs 20 times for that show during its run (being in love with Robert Lindsay was a full-time job for a teenage girl in NYC in 1986). Mr. Irving was unfailingly charming and friendly - and very good in the show, too.

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posted by tzikeh at 1:05 PM on December 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

. Stupid 2016!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 1:11 PM on December 26, 2016

The first title given to the work[Oklahoma] was Away We Go! which opened for out-of-town-tryouts in New Haven's Shubert Theatre on March 11, 1943.[12] Expectations for the show were low; Hammerstein had written six flops in a row, and the show had no star power. Producer Mike Todd walked out after the first act during the tryout and wisecracked, “No legs, no jokes, no chance.”[10] But Rodgers and Hammerstein were confident. The New Haven and Boston audiences were enthusiastic, although the reviews were only fair. Of the changes made before the show went to Broadway, two would prove significant: the addition of the show-stopping musical number, "Oklahoma!" and the decision to retitle the musical after that number
posted by Postroad at 1:44 PM on December 26, 2016

As a widdle kid in the 1960s who practiced reading on the credits of cartoon shows (with special interest in the Voice Actors), I knew George S. Irving as one of the repertoire for Total Television Animation, most notably the highly dramatic narrator for Underdog (which mixed adventure and satire extremely well, making the 'childhood-ruining' 2007 movie especially awful). Then with the iconic role for the season that just passed of "Heat Miser" in The Year Without a Santa Claus, George S. Irving was a voice I wished I'd heard a lot more of, but keeping his home near Broadway kept him away from most of the cartoon studios.

R.I.P., Heat Miser, a sadly appropriate passing during Global Warming (the original Snow Miser, Dick Shawn, passed away 30 years ago when the concept wasn't yet accepted by 97% of climate scientists).
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:05 PM on December 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

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posted by drezdn at 2:31 PM on December 26, 2016