New York City’s theater community and beyond paid tribute Sunday to Broadway veteran and “The Sopranos” co-star Robert LuPone, the Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor who died the day before of pancreatic cancer.
The older brother of Broadway icon Patti LuPone was 76.
The versatile Brooklyn-born actor earned a Tony nomination for playing Zach in the original “A Chorus Line” on Broadway, portrayed the disciple James in the 1973 film version of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and showed up as Tony Soprano’s neighbor and personal physician, Dr. Bruce “Cooze” Cusamano, on the hit HBO show.
LuPone’s other memorable TV role was as Len Schneider, smarm-master neighbor to “Sex and the City’s” Samantha Jones. He was also a fixture on the soap operas “Guiding Light” and “All My Children,” the latter netting him a Daytime Emmy nomination.
Ted Neeley, who played Jesus in “Superstar,” on Sunday remembered a “kind & gentle spirit with a great sense of humor,” he said on Twitter. “One of the best performers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Bob always did everything to the very best of his ability.”
LuPone’s first love was the stage, where he appeared in “A View from the Bridge,” “True West” and “A Thousand Clowns” on Broadway and the Chicago premiere of Sam Shepard’s “The Tooth of Crime.”
Along the way he founded the Manhattan Class Company, later known as MCC Theater, in 1986 with Bernie Telsey, a student he had taught acting to at New York University. Together with third co-artistic director Will Cantler, MCC nurtured and generated Broadway-bound hits including “Frozen,” “Reasons to be Pretty,” “Hand to God,” “School Girls; or the African Mean Girls Play,” “The Snow Geese,” “The Other Place” and “Wit,” which won the Pulitzer Prize.
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