Sam Wanamaker

Sam Wanamaker
Born	Samuel Wanamaker 14 June 1919(1919-06-14) Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died	18 December 1993(1993-12-18) (aged 74) London, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1948-1993
Spouse	Charlotte Holland (m. 1940-1993, his death)

Samuel Wanamaker (14 June 1919 – 18 December 1993) was an American film director and actor and is credited as the person most responsible for the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. He was the father of actress Zoë Wanamaker.

Early years

Wanamaker was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from Nikolayev, tailor Maurice Wattenmacker (Manus Watmakher)^[1] and Molly Bobele. Wanamaker trained at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and began working with summer stock theatre companies in Chicago and northern Wisconsin, where he helped build the stage of the Peninsula Players Theatre in 1937.

Career

Wanamaker began his acting career in traveling shows and later worked on Broadway. In 1940, he married Charlotte Holland, a Canadian radio soap star of the 1940s and later an actress.

Communist party

In 1943, Wanamaker was part of the cast of the play Counterattack at the National Theatre, Washington D.C.. During the play he became enamored of the ideals of Communism and joined the American Communist Party. He attended Drake University prior to serving in the U.S. Army between 1943 and 1946 during the Second World War. In 1947 he returned to civilian life and, before relocating to Hollywood, quit the Communist Party.

HUAC blacklisting

In 1951, Wanamaker made a speech welcoming the return of two of the Hollywood Ten. In 1952, at the height of the McCarthy "Red Scare" period, despite his distinguished service in the Army during World War II, Wanamaker learned that he had become blacklisted while he was filming Mr. Denning Drives North in the UK. Wanamaker consequently decided not to return to the United States. Instead, he reestablished his career in England, as actor on stage and screen, director and producer.

The BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are? broadcast on 24 February 2009, which featured Wanamaker's daughter Zoë, revealed that the FBI had kept a substantial investigation file for him, including incriminating witness statements. His activities were also reportedly monitored by MI5.^[2]

Britain and America

Blue plaque to Wanamaker outside the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

In 1957, he was appointed director of the New Shakespeare Theatre, in Liverpool. In 1959, he joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company at Stratford-upon-Avon, playing Iago to Paul Robeson's Othello in Tony Richardson's production that year.^[3] In the 1960s and 1970s, he produced or directed several works at Covent Garden and elsewhere including the Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations in 1974. In the 1970s, Wanamaker began an intimate, long-standing relationship with the then-widowed American actress, Jan Sterling.

He worked both as a director and actor in both films and television, and his appearances included such movies as The Spiral Staircase (1974), Private Benjamin (1980), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), and Baby Boom (1987). He also directed stage productions, including the world premiere production of Michael Tippett's opera The Ice Break.^[4] In 1980, he directed Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida" starring Luciano Pavarotti at San Francisco Opera (now broadcast version released as DVD). He was also featured as the widowed and very ruthless department store owner Simon Berrenger on the short lived drama Berrenger's in 1985.

The Man Who Built the Globe

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Southbank, London, 2004

Wanamaker founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust to rebuild the Globe Theatre in London, and played a central role in realizing the project, eventually raising well over ten million dollars. According to the New York Times, it became Wanamaker's "Great Obsession" to realize an exact replica of William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, eventually securing the financial support of philanthropist and fellow lover of Shakespeare, Samuel H. Scripps. Though, as in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the twentieth-century Royal Family were more or less supportive, British officialdom was far less so, while English Heritage, who controlled the site of the real Globe nearby, refused to allow the archaeology Wanamaker requested in order to ascertain its precise dimensions. ^[5][[^[6]

According to Karl Meyer of The New York Times:

The Shakespeare project helped Mr. Wanamaker keep his sanity and dignity intact. On his first visit to London in 1949, he had sought traces of the original theater and was astonished to find only a blackened plaque on an unused brewery. He found this neglect inexplicable, and in 1970 launched the Shakespeare Globe Trust, later obtaining the building site and necessary permissions despite a hostile local council. He siphoned his earnings as actor and director into the project, undismayed by the skepticism of his British colleagues.^[5]

On the south bank of the Thames River in London, near where the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe stands today, is a plaque that reads: "In Thanksgiving for Sam Wanamaker, Actor, Director, Producer, 1919-1993, whose vision rebuilt Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on Bankside in this parish".^[5] There is a blue plaque on the riverside wall of the theatre.

Personal life

Wanamaker died of prostate cancer in London in 1993 at the age of 74,^[7] before his dream could be finalized, and prior to the grand opening of The Globe by Queen Elizabeth II on 12 June 1997.^[8] He was survived by three daughters, Abby, Jessica and Zoë.

Filmography

Actor

My Girl Tisa (1948) as Mark Denek Give Us This Day (1949) as Geremio Mr. Denning Drives North (1952) as Chick Eddowes The Secret (1955) as Nick Delaney The Battle of the Sexes (1959) as Narrator (voice only) The Criminal (1960) as Mike Carter Taras Bulba (1962) as Filipenko Man in the Middle (1964) as Maj. Leon Kaufman, a psychiatrist The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965) as Peters Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) as George Gruber The Day the Fish Came Out (1967) as Elias Warning Shot (1967) as Frank Sanderman Danger Route (1968) as Lucinda Arturo UI (1972 TV) The Law (1974 TV) as Jules Benson Mousey (1974 TV) as Inspector The Spiral Staircase (1975) as Lieutenant Fields Voyage of the Damned (1976) as Carl Rosen The Sell-Out (1976) as Harry Sickles The Billion Dollar Bubble (1976) as Stanley Goldblum Billy Jack Goes to Washington (1977) as Bailey Death on the Nile (1978) as Sterndale Rockford Holocaust (1978 TV mini-series) as Moses Weiss Charlie Muffin (1979 TV) as Ruttgers Contro 4 bandiere (1979) as Ray MacDonald The Competition (1980) as Andrew Erskine Private Benjamin (1980) as Teddy Benjamin

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981) as Bernard Baruch Our Family Business (1981 TV) as Ralph I Was a Mail Order Bride (1982 TV) as Frank Tosconi Heartsounds (1984 TV) as Moe Silverman Irreconcilable Differences (1984) as David Kessler The Ghost Writer (1984 TV) as E.I. Lonoff Berrenger's (1985 TV series) as Simon Berrenger (1985) Embassy (1985 TV) as Ambassador Arthur Ingram The Aviator (1985) as Bruno Hansen Deceptions (1985 TV) as Jim Nolan Raw Deal (1986) as Luigi Patrovita Sadie and Son (1987 TV) as Marty Goldstein Baby Boom (1987) as Fritz Curtis Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) as David Warfield The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987 TV) as District Attorney Baby Boom (1988 TV series based on the 1987 film) as Fritz Curtis Tajna manastirske rakije (1988) as Ambassador Morley Judgment in Berlin (1988) as Bernard Hellring The Shell Seekers (1989 TV) as Richard Always Remember I Love You (1990 TV) as Grandfather Mendham Running Against Time (1990 TV) as Doctor Koopman Pure Luck (1991) as Highsmith Guilty by Suspicion (1991) as Felix Graff City of Joy (1992) (cameo) Bloodlines: Murder in the Family (1993 TV) as Gerald Woodman Killer Rules (1993 TV) as Gambon Wild Justice (1993 TV mini-series) as Kingston Parker

Television

• Cameo Theatre in "Manhattan Footstep" (episode # 1.4) June 7, 1950
• Danger Man – as Patrick Laurence in "The Lonely Chair" (episode # 1.8) October 30, 1960
• The Defenders – as Dr. Ralph Ames in "The Hundred Lives of Harry Simms" (episode # 1.7) October 28, 1961
• The Defenders – as James Henry David in "A Book for Burning" (episode # 2.27) March 30, 1963
• Man of the World – as Nicko in "The Bandit" (episode # 2.1) May 11, 1963
• Espionage – as Sprague in "Festival of Pawns" (episode # 1.10) December 11, 1963
• The Outer Limits – as Dr. Simon Holm in "A Feasibility Study" (episode # 1.29) April 13, 1964
• The Defenders – as Edward Banter in "Hollow Triumph" (episode # 3.35) June 20, 1964
• The Defenders – as United States Attorney Brooker in "A Taste of Ashes" (episode # 4.8) November 12, 1964
• The Wild Wild West – as Dr. Arcularis in "The Night of the Howling Light" (episode # 1.14) December 17, 1965
• Gunsmoke – as Asa Longworth in "Parson Comes to Town" (episode # 11.31) April 30, 1966
• Run for Your Life – as Major Joe Rankin in "The Flight from Tirana: Part 1" (episode # 2.16) January 9, 1967
• Run for Your Life – as Major Joe Rankin in "A Rage for Justice: Part 2" (episode # 2.17) January 16, 1967
• The Baron – as Sefton Folkard in "You Can't Win Them All" (episode # 1.19) February 1, 1967
• Judd for the Defense – as Shelly Gould in "The Gates of Cerberus" (episode # 2.8) November 15, 1968
• Thirty-Minute Theatre in "A Wen" (episode # 1.233) December 27, 1971
• Rafferty – as Hollander in "Rafferty" (Pilot) (episode # 1.1) September 5, 1977
• Return of the Saint – as Domenico in "Dragonseed" (episode # 1.22) February 25, 1979

Director

• The Defenders (1961 TV series) - episode?
• Court Martial (1964 TV series) - episode?
• Hawk (TV series) - episodes "Do Not Mutilate or Spindle", "Game with a Dead End" and "How Close Can You Get?" (1966)
• Cimarron Strip (TV series) - episode "Broken Wing" (1967)
• Custer (TV series) - episode "Sabers in the Sun" (1967)
• Dundee and the Culhane (TV series) - episode "The Jubilee Raid Brief" (1967)
• Coronet Blue (TV series) - episodes "The Rebels", "Man Running", "Saturday" and "The Presence of Evil" (1967)
• Lancer (TV series) - episode "The High Riders" (1968)
• Premiere (TV series) - episode "Lassiter" (1968)
• The Champions (TV series) - episode "To Trap A Rat" (1968)
• The File of the Golden Goose (1969)
• The Executioner (1970)
• Catlow (1971)
• Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
• Columbo: The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case (1977) (TV)
• David Cassidy - Man Undercover (TV series) - episode "Cage of Steel" (1978)
• Hart to Hart (TV series) - episode "Death in the Slow Lane" (1979)
• Return of the Saint (TV series) - episode "Vicious Circle" (1979)
• Mrs. Columbo aka Kate Loves a Mystery (TV series) - episodes "A Puzzle for Prophets" and "Falling Star" (1979)
• The Killing of Randy (1981) (TV)
• Columbo: Grand Deceptions (1989) (TV)

References

1. ^ "Who do you think you are - Zoë Wanamaker" BBC/2008
2. ^ Michael Buchanan (August 31, 2009). "Sam Wanamaker 'monitored by MI5'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/8230325.stm. 
3. ^ Martin Duberman, Paul Robeson, The New Press, New York, 1989, p. 476.
4. ^ inlay notes to recording on Virgin Classics VC 7 91448-2
5. ^ ^{a b c} , Edward Chaney, "Sam Wanamaker's Global Legacy", Salisbury Review, June 1995, pp. 38-40.
6. ^ "Sam Wanamaker's Great Obsession," by Karl E. Meyer, The New York Times, December 29, 1996.
7. ^ Obituary for Sam Wanamaker, New York Times, December 19, 1993
8. ^ Shakespeare's Globe :: Sam Wanamaker

External links

• Sam Wanamaker at the Internet Broadway Database
• Sam Wanamaker at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
Name	Wanamaker, Sam
Alternative names
Short description	Actor
Date of birth	June 14, 1919
Place of birth	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Date of death	1993-12-18
Place of death	London, England