Fritz William Weaver (January 19, 1926 − November 26, 2016) was an American stage and screen actor.

Weaver performed in television, stage, and motion picture acting and was well known for his roles in two seminal television films: the mini-series Holocaust and the made-for-television movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden. He was also known for his work in science fiction and fantasy, especially in television series and movies like The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, The X-Files, The Martian Chronicles and Demon Seed. Weaver also narrated educational TV programs.

Spouses

Sylvia Short (m. 1953; div. 1979)(2 children)
Rochelle Oliver (m. 1997; his death 2016)

Early life

Weaver was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 19, 1926, the son of Elsa W. (née Stringaro) Weaver and John Carson Weaver. His mother was of Italian descent and his father was a social worker from Pittsburgh with deep American roots. His younger sister was the late art director, Mary Dodson.

Weaver attended the Fanny Edel Falk Laboratory School at the University of Pittsburgh as a child, followed by Peabody High School. He served in Civilian Public Service as a conscientious objector during World War II.

Career

Following the war, Weaver worked at various jobs before turning to acting in the early 1950s. His first acting role for television came in 1956 for an episode of The United States Steel Hour. Weaver continued to act in television during the next four decades. Weaver also appeared in the made-for-TV movies The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) and Holocaust (1978), earning an Emmy nomination for the latter.

Weaver won the Tony Award for "Best Actor in a Play" and the Drama Desk Award for "Outstanding Performance" for the Broadway play Child's Play (1970). His other credits in Broadway theatre have included The Chalk Garden (Tony nomination and Theatre World Awardwin), All American, Baker Street, Absurd Person Singular, Love Letters, and The Crucible. He appeared in the off-Broadway play Burnt Piano for the HB Playwrights Theatre, and with Uta Hagen in a television adaptation of Norman Corwin's play The World of Carl Sandburg.

Weaver also acted in motion pictures, generally as a supporting player. He appeared in such movies as Fail-Safe (1964; as a jingoist and increasingly unstable U.S. Air Force colonel, ashamed of his foreign-born and alcoholic parents, which he refers to as "those people"), Marathon Man (1976), Black Sunday (1977) and Creepshow (1982), and John McTiernan's remake of The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). He also had roles in The Day of the Dolphin (1973), Demon Seed (1977), The Big Fix (1978), and Sidney Lumet's Power (1986). Beginning in 1995, Weaver worked primarily as a voice actor, providing narration for programs on the History Channel.

In 2010, Weaver was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Personal life and death

Weaver married actress Rochelle Oliver in 1997. He died at his home in Manhattan on November 26, 2016. No cause of death was immediately available.[1] He was survived by his wife; his daughter, Lydia Weaver; his son, Anthony; and a grandson. Sister Mary Dodson had just passed away some nine months prior.

Filmography

• To Trap a Spy (1964)
• Fail Safe (1964)
• The Borgia Stick (1967)
• The Maltese Bippy (1969)
• A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)
• The Day of the Dolphin (1973)
• The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975)
• Marathon Man (1976)
• Black Sunday (1977)
• Demon Seed (1977)
• Captains Courageous (1977)
• The Big Fix (1978)
• Nightkill (1980)
• Jaws of Satan (1981)
• Creepshow (1982)
• Power (1986)
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
• We'll Never Have Paris (2014)
• The Cobbler (2014)

• 'Way Out (Episode: "William and Mary")
• Tales from the Darkside (Episodes: Comet Watch (1986), Inside the Closet (1984))
• The Twilight Zone (original series) (Episodes: "Third from the Sun", "The Obsolete Man")
• The Twilight Zone (1985 revival) (Episode: "The Star")
• Beyond This Place
• Dr. Kildare
• Don't Eat the Pictures as Osiris
• The Fugitive
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• Rawhide
• The Asphalt Jungle
• Mission: Impossible
• Combat!
• Gunsmoke
• The Big Valley
• Mannix
• Night Gallery
• The New Land (Episode: "The Word is: Giving" - unaired)
• Kung Fu
• Hawaii Five-O
• Wonder Woman
• Magnum, P.I.
• Holocaust
• The Martian Chronicles
• Murder, She Wrote
• Matlock
• Law & Order
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (in the episode "Tribunal")
• Twelve O'Clock High (TV series)
• The X-Files, Frasier
• Friday the 13th: The Series, (in the two-part episode of the third season opener named "The Prophecies")
• Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight