Len Cariou

Len Cariou OC OM
Cariou in September 2009
Born	Leonard Joseph Cariou (1939-09-30) September 30, 1939 St. Boniface, Manitoba, Canada
Occupation	Actor

Leonard Joseph Cariou OC OM (born September 30, 1939) is a Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in the original cast of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and for playing the patriarch Henry Reagan, NYPD Police Commissioner (retired), in the multi-generational television series Blue Bloods on CBS.

Early years

Born in St. Boniface, today a city ward of Winnipeg, and later moving to East Kildonan, Manitoba, Cariou is the son of Molly Estelle (née Moore) and George Marius Cariou, a salesman. His father was Breton and his mother was of Irish descent. Cariou attended Miles Macdonell Collegiate for grades 10 and 11 where he directed and starred in the school plays, and he later attended St Paul's College.

Career

Cariou made his first appearance in Damn Yankees at Rainbow Stage in Winnipeg in 1959, and was a founding member of the Manitoba Theatre Centre. He was offered a scholarship at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal but, married with a young child and financial responsibilities, he was forced to decline the honor. Instead, he learned his craft by spending two years at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Stratford, Ontario, and returned in 1981 to lead the company as Prospero, Coriolanus, Brutus, and Petruchio.

Cariou also became a lead actor at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in the 1960s, where he played Orlando in As You Like It, Agamemnon in Tyrone Guthrie's compilation of The House of Atreus, Iago, Oberon, and the title roles in Henry V and King Lear. He was also an associate director.

Broadway

In 1968, Cariou made his Broadway debut in The House of Atreus. Two years later, Cariou landed his first starring role opposite Lauren Bacall in Applause, a musical adaptation of the film All About Eve. It earned him a Tony Award nomination as Best Actor in a Musical and won him the Theatre World Award. In 1973 he garnered his second Tony nod for A Little Night Music; he reprised the role of Fredrik for the 1977 film version opposite Elizabeth Taylor. Six years later he won both the Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in the Stephen Sondheim musical opposite Angela Lansbury. During these years, Cariou also appeared in a number of benefits, including A Christmas Carol for the Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York, playing Scrooge, with Helen Hayes, Raul Julia, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, directed by W. Stuart McDowell at the Symphony Space in 1985. His next projects included the Alan Jay Lerner–Charles Strouse musical Dance a Little Closer (1983), Arthur Miller's sole musical, Up from Paradise (1983), Teddy & Alice (1987), and Ziegfeld (1988). Cariou also appeared on Broadway in Night Watch, Cold Storage, The Speed of Darkness, Neil Simon's The Dinner Party (with Henry Winkler and John Ritter) and Proof (with Anne Heche and Neil Patrick Harris). He directed Don't Call Back on Broadway as well. His off-Broadway appearances include Master Class, Papa (Ernest Hemingway one man show) and Mountain (Justice William O. Douglas). He appeared as Cap'n Andy in the Broadway national tour of Show Boat opposite Cloris Leachman.

Regional theatre

Regionally, Cariou has starred in myriad productions at theatres throughout North America, including The Kennedy Centre, the Mark Taper Forum, Lincoln Centre, the Long Wharf Theatre and the Old Globe. He has played the title role of Macbeth for Toronto Arts Productions, and Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon for Canadian Stage in Toronto. He has appeared multiple times throughout his career at the Manitoba Theatre Centre. Cariou appeared at The Geffen Theatre as Joe Keller in a notable production of All My Sons, a role he reprised in 2009 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, where it was the longest running, highest grossing run of a play in that theatre's history. He also appeared at The Geffen in Neil Simon's Rose and Walsh and Heroes with George Segal.

Television

From 1985 to 1992, Cariou was seen on multiple episodes of the popular television mystery series, Murder, She Wrote opposite his good friend and former Sweeney Todd co-star Angela Lansbury. Cariou portrayed the recurring character of Michael Hagarty. Hagarty was an Irish international man of mystery who worked as a secret agent for British MI-6. He would get Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), the title character of the show, involved in mysteries involving international intrigue.

In 1993, Cariou was in the made-for-TV movie Miracle on Interstate 880. He played Buck Helm.

In 1995, Cariou became the first actor to portray Walt Disney in the Annette Funicello biography A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story based on her book of the same name.

In 1997 Cariou appeared in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Coda". He appeared to Captain Kathryn Janeway as an alien disguised as her deceased father, Admiral Janeway.

In 2010, Cariou appeared as Madoff-like Ponzi scheme man Louis Tobin in FX's drama Damages, the main antagonist in season three. Cariou has appeared in episodes of The West Wing, Law & Order, The Practice, and The Outer Limits. He had a continuing role in 2006–2007 as power broker Judd Fitzgerald in the Showtime series Brotherhood.

He currently appears as Henry Reagan, the former NYC police commissioner and patriarch of the current commissioner's family, on Blue Bloods.

Film

Cariou's film credits include One Man, Flags of Our Fathers, About Schmidt, Thirteen Days, The Four Seasons, the Harold Prince-directed screen adaptation of A Little Night Music with Elizabeth Taylor, and Secret Window in which he starred alongside Johnny Depp, who would later go on to play Sweeney Todd in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the Tim Burton-directed musical based on the Broadway show in which Cariou starred. He played the father in the 2007 film 1408, and the nominal lead role in The Onion Movie, based on the satirical newspaper. In 2018 he starred alongside Bruce Willis in Death Wish as Dr. Paul Kersey's father-in-law.

Cariou narrated Major League Baseball's World Series films from 1992 to 1997. He has recorded a number of books, including several by Michael Connelly, for audiotape release. He also narrated the 1989 Academy Award-winning documentary The Johnstown Flood. In 2009, Cariou portrayed Franklin D. Roosevelt in the HBO movie Into the Storm, earning an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. He played an American naval officer in 2013’s den Orolige Mannen (the Troubled Man), adapted from one of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels.

More recently, Cariou portrayed Cardinal Law in Spotlight, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2015. He also starred in the short play Happy Birthday, Mr. Abernathy by Lloyd Suh for a public radio show and podcast, Playing On Air.

Awards

In 2004, Cariou was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

On June 23, 2012, Cariou was honored by having his name added to the Miles Macdonell Collegiate Alumni of Distinction, for his contribution to theater and arts. His introduction to the theater started with a starring role in the school production of The Pirates of Penzance. He holds the Order of Manitoba and has been invested with honorary degrees from the University of Windsor and the University of Winnipeg.

On December 27, 2018 Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada, announced that Cariou would be one of 103 recipients becoming an Officer of the Order of Canada for his achievements as an actor of stage and screen, and for his commitment to Canadian cultural institutions.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1977	One Man	Jason Brady
	A Little Night Music	Frederick Egerman
1978	Drying Up the Streets	Larry
1981	The Four Seasons	Nick Callan
1988	Lady in White	Phil Terragrossa
1994	Getting In	Dr. Lionel Higgs / Dr. Ezekiel Higgs
1995	Never Talk to Strangers	Henry Taylor
1996	Executive Decision	Secretary of Defense Charles White
2000	Thirteen Days	Dean Acheson
2002	About Schmidt	Ray Nichols
2004	Secret Window	Sheriff Dave Newsome
2005	The Greatest Game Ever Played	Stedman Comstock
	Boynton Beach Club	Jack
2006	Flags of Our Fathers	Mr. Beech
2007	1408	Mike's Father
2008	The Onion Movie	Norm Archer
2013	Prisoners	Father Patrick Dunn
2015	Spotlight	Cardinal Bernard Law
2018	Death Wish	Ben
	Bumblebee	Hank

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1963	Quest	Unknown	1 episode
1964	Festival	Ragnar	1 episode
1979	The Great Detective	Tanner	1 episode
1981	Madame X	John Abbott	Television film
1985–1992	Murder, She Wrote	Michael Hagarty / Monsignore O'Shaugnessy	7 episodes
1985	Surviving: A Family in Crisis	David Brogan	Television film
1989	The American Playwrights Theater: The One Acts	Pat Sweeney	1 episode
1990	Gabriel's Fire	Judge Norton Heller	1 episode
1992	The Ray Bradbury Theater	Douglas	1 episode
	Street Legal	Christin Peveril	1 episode
1993	Class of '61	Dr. Leland Peyton	Television film
	The Sea Wolf	Dr. Picard	Television film
1993–2008	Law & Order	Edgar Beezley / Mac Geller / Captain Allard Bunker	3 episodes
1994	Witness to the Execution	Jake Tyler	Television film
	Love on The Run	Noah Cross	Television film
1995–2000	The Outer Limits	Doc Wells / Father Anton Jonasceu	2 episodes
1996	Swift Justice	Al Swift	Main cast 13 episodes
	The Summer of Ben Tyler	Spencer Maitland	Television film
1997	Star Trek: Voyager	Admiral Edward Janeway	1 episode
	F/X: The Series	Charles Emery	1 episode
	American Experience	Narrator (voice)	1 episode
1998	Mentors	Alexander Graham Bell	1 episode
1999	The Practice	Defense Attorney Weiland	1 episode
	In the Company of Spies	The President	Television film
2000	D.C.	Senator William Abbott	1 episode
	Nuremberg	Francis Biddle	Television film
	The West Wing	Pharmaceutical Executive	1 episode
2003	Ed	Mr. Stuckey	1 episode
2004	Sex Traffic	Magnus Herzoff	Miniseries
2005	Numb3rs	Alan Emrick	1 episode
2006–2007	Brotherhood	Judd Fitzgerald	Recurring role 10 episodes
2007	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Frank McCarty	1 episode
2008	Army Wives	Randall Meade	1 episode
2009	Into the Storm	Franklin D. Roosevelt	Television film
	Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice	Narrator	9 episodes
2010	Damages	Louis Tobin	5 episodes
2010–present	Blue Bloods	Henry Reagan	Main cast; 187 episodes
2013	Wallander	Atkins	1 episode
2019	When They See Us	Robert Morgenthau	Miniseries

External links

• Len Cariou at the Internet Broadway Database
• Len Cariou at IMDb
• Len Cariou at the Internet Off-Broadway Database