Michael McGrath, who won a Tony Award in 2012 for his work in the musical “Nice Work if You Can Get It” and has appeared regularly on Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional stages, is best known for comedic roles and his ability to do so conjurer, well-known greats such as Groucho Marx, George M. Cohan and Jackie Gleason died on Thursday at the age of 65 at his home in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
His family announced the death through publicist Lisa Goldberg. No reason was given.
Mr. McGrath was one of those stage actors who might rarely be recognized on the street, but worked reliably for decades and consistently attracted good attention. Much of his early work was at the Theater by the Sea in Matunuck, Rhode Island, where he appeared regularly from 1977 to 1991, including the title role in a 1989 production of George M!, the musical about the famous George M! Song Cohan-and-dance-man.
“McGrath exudes confidence and manic energy,” wrote Michael Burlingame in a review in The Day of New London, Conn. “McGrath struts and crows like a bantam rooster.”
In the late 1980s, he appeared in New York shows including “Forbidden Christmas,” a 1991 holiday edition of the long-running spoof revue “Forbidden Broadway”; In one sketch he was Luciano Pavarotti, wearing, as Mel Gussow wrote in a review in The New York Times, “a white shirt the size of a bedsheet.”
A year later, he made his Broadway debut in the ensemble of “My Favorite Year,” a backstage musical based on the 1982 film about the golden age of television. That show ended after a month, but it was the beginning of regular Broadway work for Mr. McGrath – sometimes as an understudy or replacement, sometimes in leading roles.
He played three different roles in “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” the hit 2005 musical based on “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” including Patsy, the servant who smashed coconuts together to imitate the sound of a galloping horse . His performance earned him a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.
His Broadway run continued with “Is He Dead?” (2007), “Memphis” (2009) and “Born Yesterday” (2011). Then, in 2012, came his Tony win in “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” a musical that featured the songs of George and Ira Gershwin. Matthew Broderick and Kelli O’Hara garnered most of the attention in the lead roles, but it was Mr. McGrath (as a smuggler) and Judy Kaye (as a temperance leader) who nabbed the series’ two Tonys for Best Actor and Best Actress in a standout role in a musical.
Mr. McGrath was most recently seen on Broadway in “She Loves Me” (2016) and “Tootsie” (2019). Between his Broadway roles, he worked off-Broadway and in regional houses. He continued to appear in productions of “Forbidden Broadway” and in a 1996 film spin-off, “Forbidden Hollywood,” in which he imitated both John Travolta’s character in “Pulp Fiction” and Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump.
That same year, he channeled his inner Groucho in “The Cocoanuts,” a revival of an old Marx Brothers show at the American Jewish Theater in Manhattan. Mr McGrath has always been known to do a bit of publicity from time to time. (“It got me into trouble with the writers,” he admitted in a 1996 Times interview. “A lot of them don’t like it when you go off script.”) But in “The Cocoanuts,” ad-libs, Groucho style, were expected.
“There are a lot of people who make better Grouchos,” McGrath told the Times, “but Groucho and I have the same sense of humor, so it’s very easy for me to spontaneously act like him.” I wouldn’t say that my timing is so good, but we are at the same stage.”
In 2017, he revived another famous character when he played Ralph Kramden, Jackie Gleason’s character, in a musical version of “The Honeymooners” at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey.
When Mr. McGrath wasn’t an A-list star, he sometimes appeared in his place. On Broadway, he understudy Martin Short twice, in 1993’s “The Goodbye Girl” and 1998’s “Little Me.” A Times reporter was in the audience for “Little Me” in December 1998 when Mr. McGrath filled in for Mr. Short. who had a cold. Many may have been initially disappointed not to see Mr. Short, but at the end of the show, The Times reported, “theatregoers gave Mr. McGrath a special ovation for people who throw themselves full-throttle into impossible situations and fly away.”
“They stood up and shouted, ‘Bravo!’ Bravo!'”
Michael McGrath was born on September 25, 1957 in Worcester, Massachusetts. After graduating from high school, he briefly studied at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, but left college after three months to begin his acting career.
His co-stars in the “Forbidden Broadway” series included Toni Di Buono. In a 1988 version of the series, he parodied Joel Grey’s “Cabaret” character; She did the same for Patti LuPone, belting out “I Get a Kick Out of Me.” Ms. Di Buono and Mr. McGrath later married.
She survives him, as does her daughter Katie Claire McGrath.
In a 2012 interview with The Cape Codder of Massachusetts, Mr. McGrath spoke about Cookie, the character he played in his Tony-winning performance in “Nice Work if You Can Get It.”
“There’s a little bit of Gleason in everything I do,” he said. “For Cookie I also incorporated elements of Groucho Marx, Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, Skip Mahoney of the Bowery Boys and even a little Bugs Bunny.”