Veteran KC, Broadway actor Gary Holcombe dies

By ROBERT TRUSSELL

The Kansas City Star

Gary Holcombe, a Broadway veteran and one of Kansas City 's most respected actors, died Monday. He was 66.

Holcombe was a versatile performer who was equally at home with drama, comedy and musicals. He possessed a warm and flexible baritone voice, which he put to good use in a wide range of shows. His signature role was Daddy Warbucks in "Annie," a role he played in the Broadway production’s fourth national tour. It was on that tour that he met his wife, actress/director Donna Thomason, who played Grace Farrell in the show. They married in 1984.

Holcombe also performed in three productions of "Annie" at Starlight Theater between 1994 and 2004. The latter production was directed by Thomason. Holcombe once estimated that he had performed the role 1,500 times and even owned his own costume.

Beginning in 1992, Holcombe for several years played Ebenezer Scrooge in the annual production of "A Christmas Carol" at what was then Missouri Repertory Theatre. Holcombe had worked at most of the professional theaters in Kansas City , including the Rep, the American Heartland Theatre, the New Theatre, Starlight and the old Tiffany's Attic Dinner Playhouse.

Significant roles Holcombe played in Kansas City included the dashing El Gallo in "The Fantasticks," a Cockney soldier from the underworld in "Saint Joan," Pap Finn in "Big River," Pharaoh in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," and a mentally damaged war veteran who uncovers family secrets in the Canadian drama "The Drawer Boy."

Holcombe was a founding member of Kansas City Actors Theatre, and it was with that group that he performed some of his strongest dramatic roles, including a southern Missouri patriarch in "Talley & Son," an eccentric island gossip in "The Cripple of Inishmaan" and German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler in "Taking Sides,"

Holcombe was born in Decatur , Ga. , and raised on a dairy farm near Bardstown , Ky. He attended Morehead State University and Indiana State University . In 1969 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam , where he was severely wounded. He temporarily lost hearing in one ear when a piece of shrapnel entered his ear canal. His legs were so badly injured that doctors told him he might never walk without a limp, but he proved them wrong.

He moved to New York with the idea of becoming an opera singer, but he found it easier to land jobs in musical theater. In 1988 Holcombe and Thomason decided to get out of New York . They moved to Kansas City , where Thomason had grown up.

For several years Holcombe taught acting at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and directed student productions. Holcombe played guitar and banjo, talents he acquired after being cast in two of the sequels to "Smoke on the Mountain." He was a bicycling enthusiast, an outdoorsman and an avid hunter.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Gary Holcombe “Dare to Risk” Scholarship Fund at the Country Club Bank, PO Box 410889, Kansas City, MO, 64141. The fund was to become active Oct. 13.

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Local actor T. Max Graham dies

By ROBERT TRUSSELL

The Kansas City Star

T. Max Graham, known as a comic actor for most of his career, took on a dramatic role as an Irish schoolmaster in the Actors Theatre KC production of Brian Friel’s “Translations.”

T. Max Graham, one of Kansas City’s most popular actors, died Thursday after a struggle with cancer. Graham, who once told The Star that he was raised on a farm in eastern Jackson County and hit the road as a kitchen-gadget salesman after high school, was a character actor who excelled at comedy but could handle dramatic roles. He once said he began his career in San Francisco in 1968.

Graham also spent time in Los Angeles in the late ’60s and ’70s and made his film debut in “Angel Unchained,” a 1970 biker film in which he played a gang member named Magician. He was credited as Neil Moran, his real name. He portrayed the factory manager in David Lynch’s feature film, “Eraserhead.”

It was after he settled in Kansas City in the 1980s that he came into his own. He performed at most of the professional theaters in town but became a local star appearing in comedies at the city’s two dinner theaters at the time — Tiffany’s Attic and the Waldo Astoria. Often he was paired with Vicki Oleson, a gifted comedienne whose small physical stature stood in sharp contrast to Graham’s beefy appearance.

Even after relocating here, Graham worked in feature films, miniseries and TV movies, often playing sheriffs and police chiefs. He played a preacher with a large appetite in director Ang Lee’s 1999 border-war epic, “Ride With the Devil,” which was shot on locations in the Kansas City region.

In recent years Graham was able to show off his dramatic abilities. In 2009, for example, he played the title role in “Galileo,” about the astronomer persecuted by the church for his contention that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

Dennis Hennessy, co-owner of the New Theatre, said there was a time when Graham’s name helped sell out shows.

“Max was really one of a kind,” he said. “In the good old days of Tiffany’s Attic, he was a headliner. People would come just to see him.”

Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Speaks Suburban Chapel, near 39th Street and Missouri 291 in Independence. The service will be there at 10 a.m. Thursday.

To reach Robert Trussell, call 816-234-4765 or send email to rtrussell@kcstar.com.