LeRoi Operti

Actor and singer, and a familiar mid-20th-Century face on the Broadway stage and in early-television character roles. Le Roi Operti's aquiline features made him a natural for stereotypical typecasting, and so he usually appeared in various 'professor', 'scientist' or 'priest' roles. On occasion he did spoken-word recordings as well. (His surname is pronounced "oh-PERty".) His father was painter Frederic Operti, and Le Roi's career spanned 57 years, beginning at the age of 12 as Gottfried in "Lohengrin" at New York's Park Theatre. The following thirteen years were spent in stock and touring productions of musical comedy and opera on the East Coast, and then he did Shakespearean roles with the Walter Hampden repertory company in New York with roles in "The Merchant of Venice" and "Hamlet". By 1935 he was working with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in the Theatre Guild's production of "The Taming of the Shrew" and they teamed again a year later in "Idiot's Delight". In 1939 he played Professor Metz in "The Man Who Came to Dinner". His final role was as the priest in "Hamlet" at Central Park's Delacorte Theatre.