Edward Kirk Herrmann (born
July 21, 1943) is an Emmy Award winning
and Tony Award nominated American
television and film actor. He is best known for his role as
Richard Gilmore in
Gilmore Girls.
Biography
Early life
Herrmann
was born in Washington,
D.C.
, the son of Jean Eleanor (née O'Connor) and John Anthony
Herrmann. He has
German
ancestry on his father's side.
Herrmann grew up in Grosse Pointe,
Michigan
, and graduated from Bucknell University
in 1965, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi. He studied acting at
the London Academy of Music and Dramatic
Art
on a Fulbright
Fellowship.
Career
Herrmann began his career in theatre.
One of the first
professional productions he appeared in was the American premiere
of Michael Weller's Moonchildren at the Arena Stage
in Washington D.C.
in November 1971. He moved with the show to
New York City to make his Broadway debut the following year.
Herrmann returned to Broadway in 1976 to portray Frank Gardner in
the revival of
Mrs.
Warren's Profession. For his performance he won a
Tony
Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play.
He is
known for his portrayal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the
made-for-TV movie, Eleanor and Franklin (1976) and
the sequel, Eleanor and
Franklin: The White House Years (1977) (both of which
earned him Best Actor Emmy nominations), as
well as in the first feature film adaptation of the Broadway
musical
Annie
(1982). Herrmann portrayed
Herman
Munster in the
Fox
telefilm Here Come The Munsters which
aired on
Halloween 1995.
Herrmann also earned an Emmy in 1999 for his guest appearances on
The Practice. He was nominated
for a
Tony Award for
Plenty in 1983 and Emmys in 1986 and 1987
for his guest-starring role as Father Joseph McCabe on
St. Elsewhere. Herrmann also played
Tobias Beecher's father on the
HBOs series
Oz. From 2000 to 2007, he portrayed
Richard Gilmore on the
CW's
Gilmore
Girls.
Herrmann's film career began in the mid-1970s, playing supporting
roles as
Robert Redford's partner in
The Great Waldo
Pepper, a law student in
The Paper Chase, the idle,
piano-playing Klipspringer in
The Great Gatsby and
opposite
Laurence Olivier in
The Betsy (1978). Among
Herrmann's better known roles are as the title character in
Harry's War (1981),
Goldie
Hawn's rich husband in
Overboard, Reverend Michael Hill
in
Disney's
The North Avenue
Irregulars, one of the characters in the
film-within-a-film in
Woody Allen's
The Purple Rose of
Cairo, and as Max, the mild-mannered head
vampire in the teen vampire film
The Lost Boys.
Herrmann is also known for his voluminous voice work for
The History Channel and various
PBS specials, and has been the "voice of
Dodge" for 12 years. His voice work also includes
dozens of
audio books, for which he's won
several Audie awards. He played Gutman in Blackstone Audio's
dramatization of
The
Maltese Falcon and is scheduled to play Cauchon in
Blackstone's version of
Bernard Shaw's
Saint Joan. Herrmann is a
well-known automotive enthusiast and restores classic automobiles.
He is the MC for the Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance every August
and hosts the television show
Automobiles on The History
Channel. Since his well-received portrayal of J.
Alden Weir in
My Dearest Anna at the
Wilton Playshop in Wilton, Connecticut
, he has been announced as a special guest of the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir and
Orchestra at Temple
Square in their Ring Christmas Bells holiday concert in
Salt Lake
City
, Utah
, December
11-14, 2008.
Family
Edward's son, Rory Herrmann, is the chef de cuisine at Bouchon
Bistro in Beverly Hills, California.
The restaurant is chef
Thomas Keller's (of French Laundry
and Per Se fame)
latest venture under the successful Bouchon name.
Filmography
- The Paper Chase
(1972)
- The Day of the
Dolphin (1973)
- The Great
Gatsby (1974)
- The Great Waldo
Pepper (1975)
- Eleanor and
Franklin (1976, TV)
- Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years (1977,
TV)
- A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story (1978,
TV)
- The Betsy (1978)
- Take Down (1979)
- The North Avenue
Irregulars (1979)
- Portrait of a Stripper (1979, TV)
- 3 by Cheever: "The Sorrows of Gin" (1979, TV)
- 3 by Cheever: "O Youth and Beauty!" (1979, TV)
- M*A*S*H: "Heal
Thyself" (1980)
- Harry's War (1981)
- Reds (1981)
- St. Elsewhere (1981,
TV)
- The Electric
Grandmother (1982, TV)
- Annie (1982)
- Mrs. Soffel (1984)
- The Man With One Red
Shoe (1985)
- The Purple Rose of
Cairo (1985)
- The Lawrenceville Stories (1986, TV)
- The Lost Boys (1987)
- Overboard
(1987)
- Big Business
(1988)
- Sweet Poison (1991)
- Born
Yesterday (1993)
- A Foreign Field
(1993)
- Richie Rich
(1994)
- The
Face on the Milk Carton (1995, made-for-TV)
- Law & Order (1995,
TV)
- Nixon (1995)
- Wings (1995, TV)
- A Season in
Purgatory (1996, TV miniseries)
- Oz (1997, TV)
- The Practice (1997-99,
TV)
- Better Living 1998
- Atomic Train (1999,
TV)
- RKO 281 (1999, TV)
- Gilmore Girls
(2000-2007)
- Down (aka The Shaft) 2001
- The Cat's Meow
(2001)
- The Emperor's Club
(2002)
- Intolerable Cruelty
(2003)
- The Aviator (2004)
- Isaac's Storm (2004)
- Bereft (2004)
- The Presidents (2005)
- FDR: A Presidency Revealed (2005)
- The
American Revolution (2006, narrator)
- Wedding Daze (2006)
- Factory Girl (2006)
- I Think I Love My
Wife (2007)
- Sherman's March
(2007)
- The States
(2007)
- Grey's Anatomy (2007)
Norman - 3 episodes
- 30 Rock (2008, TV) Co-Op Board
Member
- The Skeptic (2009)
Shepard
- Law & Order (2009,
TV)
- Hatching Pete (2009,
TV)
His papers are currently housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival
Research Center at Boston University.
References
- Edward Herrmann Biography (1943-)
- audio.html
- Welcome to
LAMDA - The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
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