A Look at Leonard Frey

September 4 was the birthday of actor Leonard Frey (1938-88).

Frey once worried aloud that all anyone would remember him for (if they remembered him for anything) was for creating the role of Harold in The Boys in the Band, both the 1968 off-Broadway play and the 1970 screen version directed by William Friedkin. GUILTY! I mean, sure, few others remember him at all anyway, but when I think of him it’s always in that gonzo, brave, scary, electrifying performance. It’s kind of a terrible, by-the-numbers play, full of stereotypes, but it will always occupy a niche in history for telling an openly gay story in a mainstream Hollywood movie, and Frey is by far the most interesting and memorable actor in it. So yes, that’s what I think of when I think of Leonard Frey. But he did so much else, and much of it is of note, so those things deserves to be remarked upon as well.

Frey was in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof (1964) initially in the nearly-non-speaking role of Mendel; later he replaced Austin Pendleton as Motel, a part which Frey retained in the 1971 screen version, and which earned him an Oscar nomination. He has a hilarious turn as one “Laurence Faggot” (essentially reprising Harold) in The Magic Christian (1969) with Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. He’s also in Otto Preminger’sTell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) with Liza Minnelli. His other motley movies include the Hunter S. Thompson bio-pic Where the Buffalo Roam (1980), Mad Magazine‘s Up the Academy (1980), and the psycho thriller Tattoo (1981) with Bruce Dern and Maud Adams.

Frey was a regular on three short-lived TV series: Best of the West (1981-82), Mr. Smith (1983) which starred the orangutan from the Clint Eastwood movies, and Mr. Sunshine (1986) with Jeffery Tambor. He played an alien in a pilot for a series called Earthlings (1984) and guest starred on shows like Barney Miller, Mary Tyler Moore, Quincy, Trapper John MD, Moonlighting, and Murder She Wrote.

Frey returned to the Broadway stage numerous times over a busy decade. Almost of the shows he was cast in were revivals: The Time of Your Life (1969), Beggar on Horseback (1970), Twelfth Night (1972, as Andrew Aguecheek), A Kurt Weill Cabaret (1979), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1980, in the plum role of Banjo). He was nominated for a Tony for his performance in Peter Nichols’ comedy The National Health (1974), and also went in as a replacement in the Jules Feiffer musical Knock Knock (1976).

Frey was Jewish and from Brooklyn. He originally studied art at Cooper Union, but shifted gears when he was accepted into Neighborhood Playhouse, where he studied under Sanford Meisner.

His last appearance was in a 1987 telefilm on The Magical World of Disney. You know what killed him, don’t you? He was gay and he died in 1988. It was AIDS. He was a few days shy of his 50th birthday.