Sydney Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin's son and Tony-winning Broadway actor
LOS ANGELES - Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's son and himself a Tony-winning actor who starred on Broadway opposite Judy Holliday in "Bells Are Ringing" and Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl," died Tuesday. He was 82.
Chaplin died at his home in Rancho Mirage, longtime family friend Jerry Bodie said. He said Chaplin had recently suffered a stroke.
Chaplin appeared in two of his father's later films, "Limelight" (1952) and "The Countess from Hong Kong" (1967). But he never achieved the success in Hollywood that he enjoyed in New York's musical theater.
He won his Tony for "Bells Are Ringing," the 1956 Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical about a telephone answering service operator (Holliday) who falls in love with a customer (Chaplin). New York Herald Tribune critic Walter Kerr wrote that the actor "doubles the evening's warmth by the simple expedient of believing in its love story."
His best-remembered show, though, was the 1964 smash "Funny Girl" as Nicky Arnstein, the gambler who woos Streisand in her star-making role as Fanny Brice. The New York Times called him "a tall, elegant figure as Nick, gallant in courting and doing his best when he must be noble."
Sydney Chaplin
March 21, 1926 - March 3, 2009
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