Richard Kiley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Paul Kiley (March 31, 1922March 5, 1999) was an American stage, television, and film actor, though he is best known for his voice work, as narrator of various documentary series.

In Jurassic Park, the park's impresario boasts about the tour of the park, "The voice you're now hearing is Richard Kiley. We've spared no expense." Kiley was introduced as the narrator for the tour first in the novel by Michael Crichton, and later in the film adaptation by Steven Spielberg. Visitors to Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, Florida hear Kiley as the narrator of the Jurassic Park Adventure Ride - possibly the only instance of a voice actor appearing in a novel, movie, and theme park ride.

Kiley was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised Roman Catholic. His work on stage included Richard Rodgers's first musical for which he wrote both music and lyrics, No Strings, the Buddy Hackett vehicle I Had a Ball, and the lead roles in Redhead and Man of La Mancha. He won Tony Awards as Best Actor in a musical for the latter two. The dual role of the middle-aged Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote is one of the few musical roles which is both a character actor role and a leading man at the same time, rather than the conventional handsome hero who wins the girl, and Kiley, who had gone on record as saying that he had grown tired of the regular "leading man" role, was always grateful for having been given the chance to play it. Although he did not star in the film version of Man of La Mancha, his performance led to many made-for-TV films and guest shots. He was one of the few actors on Broadway who had both a fine singing voice and exceptional acting ability.

Kiley won several Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Awards for his work in television, including The Thorn Birds (as Paddy, Rachel Ward's father) (1983) and A Year in the Life (198687).

Kileyappeared as Gideon Seyetik in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Second Sight".

Kiley died of an unspecified bone marrow disease in Warwick, New York at the age of 76. The lights on Broadway theaters were turned off in his honor.

  • Man of La Mancha - original theatrical program, for Kiley's personal comments on playing Don Quixote


Preceded by
Robert Preston
for The Music Man
Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical
1959
for Redhead
Succeeded by
Jackie Gleason
for Take Me Along
Preceded by
Zero Mostel
for Fiddler on the Roof
Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical
1966
for Man of La Mancha
Succeeded by
Robert Preston
for I Do! I Do!

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