George S. Irving (born Irving Shelasky; November 1, 1922 – December 26, 2016) was an American actor known primarily for his character roles on Broadway and as the voice of Heat Miser in the American Christmas television specials beginning with The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974).
When Irving was 13 or 14, he sang in synagogues and churches as a boy soprano. By his final high school year in 1940, he heard about a dramatic school in Boston for those who were not quite draft age and who were tall and had deep voices, so he immediately received a scholarship. In 1942, he worked in the chorus of the St. Louis Muny Opera.[5]
Career
On stage
Irving made his debut in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!, only to be drafted days later to serve in the United States Army in World War II. He received this role when one of the original actors lost his voice, and Irving went on as his replacement. He explains the following: "I wrote to The Theatre Guild when they were casting Oklahoma! and asked them to remind Oscar Hammerstein that he knew me a little, and I got an audition and was cast in the chorus".[5]
Irving is best known to Broadway audiences for his performance with Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell (successively) in Irene (1974), and his Tony nominated performance as Sir John in Me and My Girl (1987).[citation needed] At the 27th Tony Awards, he won the Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for "Irene".
In 2008, Irving recreated the three roles he originally played in the ill-fated 1976 Joseph Stein musical So Long, 174th Street, now reworked, revised, and with its original title Enter Laughing at Off-Broadway's York Theatre Company, and received rave reviews for his rendition of "The Butler's Song".[6] Irving performed his one-man cabaret show to great acclaim at Feinstein's in New York City in November 2008.[7] On December 8, 2008, aged 86, Irving received the 17th Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.[8]
Irving returned to television in 2008 after an absence of more than a decade to reprise his role as Heat Miser in A Miser Brothers' Christmas, a sequel to The Year Without a Santa Claus, which premiered on December 13, 2008, on cable's ABC Family (now Freeform). The show served as the network's first original animated special. The production was nominated for an Annie Award for Best Animated Television Production Produced for Children by the Los Angeles Chapter of the International Animated Film Society.
Television
Irving was familiar to television audiences of the 1970s as a result of his memorable guest-starring appearance on All in the Family as Russ DeKuyper, the loudmouthed husband of Edith Bunker's cousin Amelia.[10] He was also a regular in the cast of the short-lived 1976 sitcom The Dumplings. Irving also did some work in commercials for White Owl Cigars in the early 1970s. He appeared as a memorable Baron Mirko Zeta in the New York City Opera production of Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow, broadcast live in 1996 from the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; during the intermission he talked about the operetta's history and historical inspiration.[citation needed]
Irving died in Manhattan of heart failure on December 26, 2016, at the age of 94. At this age, he had been the last surviving cast member of Underdog.[12]
