Len Cariou

Len Cariou

 Len Cariou, actor, director, singer (born at St-Boniface, Man 30 Sep 1939). Len Cariou has had remarkable success in a wide range of roles in the classical, contemporary and musical theatre. He gained his early education and training in Winnipeg and made his stage debut in the chorus of Damn Yankees at the RAINBOW STAGE, Winnipeg, in 1959. He appeared in The Threepenny Opera and Mr. Roberts at the MANITOBA THEATRE CENTRE in 1961. He was a member of the STRATFORD FESTIVAL from 1962 to 1964, playing supporting roles in The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Macbeth, The Comedy of Errors and The Country Wife. He would return to Stratford for the 1984-85 season playing the title role in Coriolanus, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, Brutus in Julius Caesar and Prospero in The Tempest. He joined the Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis, playing Orlando in As You Like It (1966), Orestes in The House of Atreus (1968), Feste in Twelfth Night (1968) as well as the title role in John Arden's Sergeant Musgrave's Dance (1968). He gained a further international reputation as a classical actor appearing at the Chichester Festival, England, in Love's Labour's Lost (1964), at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, in Othello (1969), and playing Henry V at the American Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Connecticut, in 1969.

Len Cariou began to gain recognition for his work in the musical theatre playing the role of Bill Sampson in Applause at New York's Palace Theatre in 1970, receiving a Tony Award nomination. He became known as a major interpreter of the work of Stephen Sondheim, playing Fredrik in A Little Night Music (1973), which earned him a second Tony Award nomination, and playing the title role in Sweeney Todd (1979), for which he received the Tony Award for best actor in a musical. He continued his work in non-musicals in New York, receiving acclaim as Richard Landau in Cold Storage (1977), Stalin in Master Class (1986) and Ernest Hemingway in Papa (1997). Cariou returned to Winnipeg as artistic director of the Manitoba Theatre Centre for the 1974-75 season, playing Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac, directed by Jean GASCON. In 1984 he directed James Whitmore in a memorable production of Death of a Salesman at Edmonton's CITADEL THEATRE. He served as associate director of the Citadel Theatre in 1986.

He has had an extensive film and television career including A Little Night Music (1977), One Man (1979), The Four Seasons (1981), The Lady in White (1988), Never Talk to Strangers (1995) and Class of '61 (1996). He played Michael Haggerty in a number of episodes of Murder, She Wrote (1985-92) with Angela Lansbury and played Alexander Graham Bell in the Canadian series Mentors (1998). He appeared in, among numerous other series, The Outer Limits (1995-2000), The West Wing (2000) and Numb3rs (2005) for TV, and in the feature films About Schmidt (2002), Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and 1408 (2007). He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role as Franklin D. Roosevelt in Into the Storm (2009) for HBO. Len Cariou had a recurring role in the TV series Damages (2010) and is seen as a retired police commissioner in the TV series Blue Bloods (2010- ).