Larry Blyden Made It On Broadway And The Small Screen

The high point of Larry Blyden’s show business career came on April 23, 1972, when the star of stage and the small screen was awarded a Tony for his performance in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”    The high point of Larry Blyden’s show business career came on April 23, 1972, when the star of stage and the small screen was awarded a Tony for his performance in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

    Ivan Lawrence Blieden was born into a comfortably middle-class Houston family in 1925.  But like so many children of his generation, the “nice Jewish boy” was badly scarred by the Depression.

    Times were suddenly tough for the Bliedens after the father, a respected lawyer, lost his job and could not find work for three long years.  Little Larry’s earliest memories were of “dodging creditors” and the losing battle to make ends meet.

    “I assumed that being poor was personal,” he reflected in a 1962 interview.  “It was hard for me to realize that it was a general condition and not my family’s fault.”

    Unhappy and feeling “personally insignificant,” teenaged Larry developed a deep inferiority complex.  Then in high school he discovered acting and learned “I didn’t have to be me.  I could be somebody else.”

    After graduation, Larry did his patriotic part by serving three years in the Marines.  He returned to the Bayou City and earned a degree at the University of Houston, while working part-time as a radio announcer and dabbling in community theater.

    With college behind him, Larry decided to devote himself to acting.  He studied at the Royal Academy of the Arts in London and with the famous Stella Adler in New York.  

    Changing the spelling and pronunciation of his last name, he landed a few bit parts in Broadway plays before fellow Texan Josh Logan provided his big break – the role of Ensign Frank Pulver in the hit “Mister Roberts.”

    Unlike most stage actors, Blyden did not turn up his nose at the new entertainment medium taking over America’s living rooms in the early 1950s.  And, with most television programs being produced in New York, he was able to juggle two careers at once.

    When Blyden was not on Broadway, he was on TV appearing in the weekly dramas so popular at the time.  “Playhouse 90,” “The Loretta Young Show,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and many others gave the comedian the opportunity to show his serious side.

    One such role is now considered a classic, that of “Rocky Valentine” in the “Twilight Zone” episode titled “A Nice Place to Visit” which aired on April 15, 1960.  Blyden played a small-time hoodlum, who thinks he has died and gone to heaven because in the afterlife he has everything he ever wanted.

    Blyden’s quick wit and charm were a perfect fit for the half-hour game show, which began to catch on with viewers in the 1950s.  He was a frequent panelist on “What’s My Line?,” “Password” and “To Tell the Truth.”

    His growing popularity with the TV audience convinced network bosses to try him in his own sitcom.  But both “Joe & Mabel” in 1957 and “Harry’s Girls” seven years later summer replacements that did not make to Labor Day.

    The only place Blyden did not succeed was Hollywood.  He made just three films:  “Kiss Them for Me” with Gary Grant and Jayne Mansfield in 1957, “The Bachelor Party” with Amarillo’s Carolyn Jones and Don Murray that same year and “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” with Barbra Streisand in 1970.  He summed up his short-lived movie career with the comment, “The fact that I’m in something sells very few tickets.”

    Despite his busy television schedule, Blyden’s first love was Broadway.  In the 1960s alone, he appeared with Bert Lahr in the musical “Foxy,” replaced Eli Wallach in the lead role of “Luv,” co-starred in the musical “The Apple Tree” and received rave reviews for the comedy “You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running.”

    Blyden’s game-show experience coupled with his ability to work without a script, something very few actors can do, made him an ideal emcee.  His first gig as host was on “Personality” in 1967.  

    He soon became, as son Josh put it, “the guy that took over for other guys on game shows.”  When Bill Leyden suffered a brain hemorrhage, it was Blyden who stepped in as emcee of “You’re Putting Me On.” In the case of “The Movie Game,” it was poor ratings that led to his replacing the original host.  Finally, in 1972, Blyden filled the chair once occupied by the legendary John Charles Daly on “What’s My Line?”

    Nineteen seventy-two was also the year Blyden won a Tony, the Broadway equivalent of the Oscar, for his hilarious portrayal of Hysterium the slave in the slapstick comedy “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

    After “What’s My Line?” finally ran out of gas in early 1975, Blyden signed to host “Showoffs” with a starting date of June 30.  Taking some much needed time off, he flew to Morocco to hunt for antiques, a favorite pastime.

    Larry Blyden was badly injured in a one-car accident on May 31, 1975.  Although the American consul reported his prognosis was good after emergency surgery, the talented Texan took an unexpected turn for the worse and died five days later at age 49.

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