Dennis Arnd, a former helicopter pilot whose The performing profession reached his zenith when he debuted at Broadway on the age of 77 within the comedy “Heisenberg” and received a nomination for the Tony Award, died on March 25 at his residence in Ashland, Ore. He was 86 years outdated.
His spouse Maggie Downey confirmed the loss of life. She mentioned the precise trigger was unknown.
Mr. Arnd has constructed his fame as a stage actor at Oregon Shakespeare Competition within the 70’s and 80s. Later, he turns into a well-known face in tv sequence equivalent to “La Legislation” and “Picket Fences” and performs one of many detectives who query Sharon Stone in a well-known erotic scene in “Predominant Intuition” (1992).
He first appeared in Heisenberg, a two -signs of Simon Stevens, which the Theater Membership in Manhattan produces on the Metropolis Heart studio to Stage II in 2015. The play is transferred to the Samuel J. theater. Broadway Friedman subsequent yr.
Mr. Arnd performs Alex, preserved, the 75-year-old butcher, born of Eire, who’s in a London station when he’s unexpectedly kissed by the neck of Georgi (Mary-Louise Parker), a powerful, impulsive and mysterious 42-year-old American. Her boldness ignites romance.
Ben Brantley, A review of “Heisenberg” Within the New York Occasions, he known as Mr. Arnd and G -Ja Parker “probably the most attractive couple on stage in New York now.” Mr. Arndt, He Wrote, “Makes What must be the Most Unlikely and IrresistiBle Broadway Debut of the 12 months. He Lends ROILING, AT FIRST Barely Detectable Power to the Seming Passiness Himself Crying for Causes He Can’t (Nor Desires to) Clarify.
In Interview with The Times In the course of the working of the play, Arnd speaks ecstatic concerning the chemistry she felt on the stage with Ga -Ja Parker, who appeared in her seventh Broadway present.
“I really feel compelled to pay her all my consideration,” he mentioned. “I see the goddess. I do it. I actually do it.”
G -n Arndt, D -Ja Parker informed Occasions, “Every thing I might need -passionately and so sensible and so delicate.”
Heisenberg from the title of the play is the German physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize Werner Heisenbergidentified for its precept of insecurity. This precept isn’t talked about by the characters, however its title provokes the unpredictability of their romance.
D -Arnd was nominated for Tony for the very best actor in a play in 2017, however misplaced to Kevin Klein, who received for his efficiency within the Nail Cowlian comedy “Current Laughter”.
When G -N Arnd and D -Ja Parker accepted their roles on the Mark Desk discussion board in Los Angeles in 2017, Charles McNult of Los Angeles Occasions writes: “Arnd provides a touching majesty to his pink -hearted sensuality to his character.”
Dennis Leroy Arnd was born on February 23, 1939 in, Clyde, Ohio, and later moved along with his dad and mom and two youthful sisters in Spotan, Washington. His father Brace was a railway swap, And his mom Arlin owned a seamstress retailer the place she made curtains.
He began performing in highschool, however after graduating within the military, the place he spent a couple of decade. He trains as a helicopter pilot and later flies missions in Vietnam, receiving two purple hearts when his airplane fused. He was glad to fly – “You had the machine in your hand, and this grew to become a continuation of your central nervous system,” he informed The Occasions – and labored as a industrial pilot in Alaska after his discharge.
He studied historical past on the College of Washington on the GU’s invoice, however didn’t graduate and shortly began performing within the theaters in Seattle. Within the Nineteen Seventies, he started a protracted relationship with Oregon Shakespeare’s pageant in Ashland.
Mark MurphyWho shared the scene with G -N Arnd in Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Two Gents of Verona, mentioned in an interview: “As an actor, he was proper now; he was completely different each time, each night time he was simply extremely very important and jaccharous. He simply had that benefit.”
G -N Arnd performed the main position in King Lear, the Lengthy Day Journey of the Evening of Eugene O’Neal and different performs on the pageant and is commonly carried out in different theaters on the west coast. He additionally appeared in Michael Weller’s “Ballad of soapy Smith on the Manhattan Public Theater in 1984 and” Richard II “on the Delacort Theater within the Central Park in 1987.
In 1988, he left the Oregon Competition, the place he performed Hickey in O’Neill’s “The Iceman Come” to hitch the solid of Annie McGuire, a brand new sitcom that includes Mary Tyler Moore, equivalent to her husband, a civil engineer. He had already achieved some film and tv work, however an dedication to a star like star like D -Moore was one thing new in his profession.
On the Sunday of the Oregon newspaper, he introduced in a time that some individuals on the pageant had been upset that Mr. Arnd had left. However he informed the newspaper that touchdown a job in a excessive -profile community sequence is a reward for his age on stage work. “The concept of being invited to play marbles with large youngsters is one thing all of us try for,” he mentioned.
(He’ll return to the Oregon Competition in 2014 as Prospero in The Tempest and in quite a few roles in The Nice Society, the second of Robert Schenkan’s performs for President Lindon B. Johnson.)
Annie McGuire lasted solely 10 episodes, however Mr. Arnd quickly grew to become a daily presence on tv. He performed attorneys in repetitive roles of “La Legislation”, “Picket Fences” and “The Apply” and was seen in “Boston Authorized”, “Life Continues”, “Supernatural”, “The Anatomy of Grey”, “The Good Battle”, “How To Get From The Homicide” and “Majdi” and “Majdi” and “Maid” and “Maji” and “Majdi” and “Maji” and “Ly.”
Along with his spouse, Mr. Arnd survived two daughters, McKena Rowe and Brace Brooks and son Taner Taner Arndt from their marriage; Three daughters, Tami, Lori and Kirsten Arnd and son Scott from his marriage to Marjorie Arveson, who ended with divorce; And plenty of grandchildren, nice -grandchildren and nice -grandchildren.
D -n Arnd was not the primary alternative for Heisenberg, however he got here in shortly when Kenneth Waleswhich was initially aired within the manufacturing of Broadway, left 4 days earlier than rehearsals started.
“I used to be ready for this,” Mr. Arndt informed Los Angeles Occasions. He added, “My perception, chemistry, with this girl, her unbelievable ability – it is an excessive amount of enjoyable to make use of all of the instruments in my field.”
