With each year, our connection to the Golden Age of Hollywood grows dimmer as the performers and creators of that era pas on, and I'm saddened to report that we've lost another one of the greats. Norman Lloyd, who appeared in a number of classic films including Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur, died yesterday at the age of 106.
Driven by his mother's love of theater, Norman Llyod became a vaudeville performer at a young age and later became a charter member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, performing in plays such as Caesar, The Shoemaker's Holiday, King Lear, Don Juan in Hell, and more. Norman Lloyd and the other members of the Mercury Theatre soon ventured to Hollywood, where they were set to take part in what would have been Orson Welles' first film, Heart of Darkness. But the studio pulled the plug on the film and Welles asked the actors to stick around while he prepared his next project, but Lloyd impulsively returned to New York. "Those who stayed did Citizen Kane," Lloyd recalled. "I have always regretted it." Although Lloyd didn't get to appear in Citizen Kane, he did return to Hollywood where he appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur and a slew of other films, including The Southerner, The Unseen, Spellbound, M, Limelight, FM, Dead Poet's Society, The Age of Innocence, Trainwreck, and more.
Norman Lloyd also appeared in TV shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Night Gallery, Kojack, The Twilight Zone, Wiseguy, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Wings, Murder, She Wrote, Seven Days, The Practice, and Modern Family, but he's best known for playing Dr. Daniel Auschlander on St. Elsewhere, the kindly and wise Chief of Services at St. Eligius hospital.
Lloyd's talent's weren't just seen in front of the camera, as Alfred Hitchcock later hired him to serve as an associate producer on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a role which expanded to executive producer as the series went on. Lloyd was happy to step behind the camera, as he said "It's steadier work." Lloyd would also directed over twenty episodes of the series and also helmed episodes of Columbo, Tales of the Unexpected, and more. You will be truly missed, Mr. Lloyd.