The Stratford Festival will present Canadian actor Len Cariou with its Legacy Award at a gala in Toronto next week, the Southwestern Ontario theater company has announced.
The Stratford Festival will present Canadian actor Len Cariou with its Legacy Award at a gala in Toronto next week, the Southwestern Ontario theater company has announced.
“I have such enormous admiration for Len Cariou and I am so very pleased that we can recognize his outstanding contributions to theatre,” Antoni Cimolino, the Festival’s artistic director, said Thursday. “The depth and versatility he shows as an actor is second to none.”
Born in St. Boniface, MB, now a part of Winnipeg, Cariou began his acting career with the Manitoba Theater Center before making his way to Stratford in 1962. Over the next two years he performed in 12 productions including as Cléonte in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme , Longaville in Love’s Labour’s Lost and Servilius in Timon of Athens.
Afterwards, Cariou joined Stratford Festival artistic director Tyrone Guthrie at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. They worked together again when Cariou made his Broadway debut in 1968 in The House of Atreus, directed by Guthrie.
Cariou went on to star in more than a dozen Broadway productions. He famously originated the role of Fredrik Egerman in A Little Night Music, winner of 1973’s Tony for Best Musical, and Sweeney Todd, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 1979.
Cariou returned to Stratford for the 1981 and 1982 seasons, playing the title role in Coriolanus, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, Prospero in The Tempest, Brutus in Julius Caesar and Major Sergius Saranoff in Arms and the Man.
“Here at the Festival he performed some of the greatest classical roles and, on Broadway, he created two of the most unforgettable musical figures in modern theatrical history,” Cimolino said. “We were very fortunate indeed that (Cariou) not only came to Stratford to build his career, but also returned as a leading player, generously mentoring younger actors while continuing to grow within the Stratford company.”
Cariou, 82, is now most widely known for playing retried NYPD Commissioner Henry Reagan in Blue Bloods, the long-running CBS series starring Tom Selleck. Cariou has also appeared in several episodes of Murder She Wrote with Angela Lansbury, his Tony-winning co-star in Sweeney Todd.
Cariou’s television credits also include Star Trek: Voyager, Damages, The West Wing, Law & Order, Brotherhood and The Outer Limits. In 2009, he earned an Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of Franklin Roosevelt in HBO’s Into the Storm.
Cariou is a Member of the Order of Canada and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2004.
The Stratford Festival launched its Legacy Award in 2011 to honor important figures from its history. The first Legacy Award was presented to Christopher Plummer. Other recipients include Dame Maggie Smith, William Shatner, Martha Henry, Colm Feore, Eric McCormack, Gordon Pinsent, Megan Follows and Andrea Martin.
Cariou will accept the award on Monday at a gala hosted by McCormack, who received his Legacy Award in 2017. The event will feature tribute performances by André Sills, Dan Chameroy, Robert Ball and Sandra Caldwell, accompanied by Franklin Brasz.