Hello, my name is Mandy Patinkin
From The Princess Bride to Dead Like Me, this KU alumnus has proven to be one of the most versatile entertainers in show business today. Now he returns for an evening conversation
By Donovan Atkinson
Thursday, April 7th, 2005
He looks like your uncle. The guy-next-door type. A regular Joe you could just hang out with. Not the kind of guy who goes on swashbuckling adventures to get revenge for his father’s death or who would take possession of a Muppet’s favorite blanket. Not the kind of guy who can sing booming operas as well as high-toned ballads. University of Kansas alumnus Mandy Patinkin is an unassuming guy with a lot of talent.
So unassuming that you may not even be aware of the fact that you’re aware of him. Patinkin was long a fixture on television as Dr. Jeffery Gieger on Chicago Hope, eventually winning an Emmy for his performance in 1999. And he led the ensemble cast of Showtime’s Dead Like Me. But if you’re like most college students, you’d recognize Patinkin after hearing just one quote from one of his films.
“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
But Patinkin has done more than portray a Spanish swordsman with an indecipherable accent and a need to find the six-fingered man who killed his father. Patinkin has played in a wide range of roles: A selfish junk man in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, a love-sick student and object of Barbra Striesand’s affection in Yentl, a displaced alien cop in Alien Nation. In addition to his acting, he has also enjoyed a successful singing career, which included his one man show Dress Casual, and released seven albums.
“He’s so versatile, as versatile as any performer I can think of,” says Jack Wright, professor of theater and film and moderator for this Saturday’s “A Conversation with Mandy Patinkin.” He has such a dynamic casting range that he can play the leading man or act in character roles, Wright says.
But while Patinkin has had success in film and television, some critics have written that this one-man vaudeville act is best on the stage and that film hasn’t given him great opportunities for his talents. That may be true, says Ron Willis, professor emeritus, but it doesn’t loom as a real criticism. Some people are explosive on stage but come across lackluster on film, he says. Patinkin’s energy still carries across, but film editing changes the dynamic that he normally has on stage. “You can see the magnetic force,” says Willis, who directed Patinkin in a 1971 University Theatre production of Lysistrata. “There’s such a high concentration of energy, you have a hard time taking your eyes from him.”
Even when Patinkin was an undergraduate at the University he displayed the same qualities that punctuate his work. Sandy Wong, 1973 graduate, remembers that he really got into the role of Sancho Panza for the musical Man of La Mancha. “I remember him being outstanding,” she says. “I’ve always been in awe of his abilities.”
For his production of Lysistrata, Willis wanted the set to be very close to the audience, to overwhelm them with scaffolding that went to the ceiling of the Crafton-Preyer Theatre. The actors were to come in and awe the audience, climbing the scaffolding. When Willis told the actors his plan, Patinkin had one request. “He said ‘Let me be first, let me be first,’” Willis says.
“He made every part his own,” says Christy Brandt, who worked with Patinkin at the Creede Repertory Theatre in Creede, Colo., after he had left the University to go to Juliard. He brought something of his own to every part he took, and showed great imagination and extraordinary talent. Brandt, a 1973 graduate, says that Patinkin was always ambitious and wanted to make it as an actor, working hard and dedicating himself to everything that he did. “Mandy needed to be a star,” Brandt says, “and once he became a star it really relaxed him.”
But Patinkin’s not strictly a career man. “He’s not one who’s had a career and no life,” Brandt says. Patinkin married actress/playwright Kathryn Grody in 1980 and they have two sons, Isaac and Gideon. Grody used their experiences raising their sons for her one-woman show, A Mom’s Life.
In addition to his work on stage and on the screen, Patinkin is also active politically and contributes to a number of different social causes. He also maintains a home in Creede, Colo., and still is involved with the Creede Repertory Theatre, working with the theater’s board to keep things up-to-date. Brandt says that he has been helpful in keeping the theater aware of new trends in theater because of his continuing experience with modern theaters that not everyone in the small mountain town of Creede has the opportunity to find out about.
And through all of his success, Patinkin has remained a Jayhawk at heart. When he was performing his one-man show, Dress Casual, in Kansas City, Jack Wright took him a stuffed Jayhawk. Patinkin did a short version of the Rock Chalk Chant when Wright gave it to him. Patinkin has kept close to his Jayhawk roots. The Creede Repertory Theatre was founded by University graduates in 1966. When Patinkin came to campus in 2001 for an impromptu visit during one of his tours, he brought along one of his sons so he could get a look before applying to colleges. They spent a day touring campus and looking at all of the new buildings. “He was very excited to be back on campus,” Wright says.
datkinson@kansan.com
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