Stage And Screen Actor Ron Faber Dies At Age 90

Veteran award-winning actor Ron Faber, whose Broadway appearances include "First Monday in October" with Henry Fonda and "Medea" with Irene Papas, died March 26 after a two-month battle with lung cancer. He was 90.

Faber, who was also seen in dozens of plays off-Broadway, won an Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award in 1972 for his role as a political prisoner in Fernando Arrabel's harrowing drama about the Spanish Civil War, "And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers."

Born Feb. 16, 1933 in Milwaukee, WI when it was a factory town, Faber grew up loving jazz and other forms of music and was fascinated by the Disney film "Fantasia." None of his family had advanced education, but he was accepted to Marquette University. Originally entered as a business student, he gradually found his way to the English Literature crowd, one of whom got him a job doing children's shows on radio. He joined the Marquette Players and later joined the Van Buren Players, where a show that he directed was seen by Eva Le Gallienne. She got him a scholarship to direct at the Lucille Lortel White Barn Theater in Westport, CT, where he began his professional career.

Among his numerous appearances off-Broadway included "Happy Days" at the Cherry Lane Theatre; "Stonewall Jackson's House," "Times and Appetites of Toulouse Lautrec," "The Beauty Part," and "Tunnel Fever" at the American Place Theater; "The Last Laugh" at the Jewish Repertory Theatre, "Lucky Stiff" at Playwrights Horizons, "Hamlet," "Mary Stuart," "Scenes From Everyday Life," and "Woyzeck" at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre; "Troilus and Cressida" at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre; and "Doctor Selavy's Magic Theatre" and "And They Put Handcuffs on Flowers" at the Mercer Arts Center. For the latter production he had to shave his head and dress in leather and one night he got attacked on the street by a real bunch of leather guys, who beat him and left a dent in his chest. He was also featured in Wallace Shawn's "The Hotel Play" at La Mama ETC, which had a cast of 70 and was called "a mad theatrical stunt" by Frank Rich in the N.Y. Times.

His films include "The Exorcist," "Tree of Guernica," "The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover," "Soup For One," "Calling Bobcat," "On the Yard," and "Navy Seals," and he was seen in TV episodes of "Law and Order," Kojak," and "The Edge of Night," as well as several TV movies.

He leaves behind his wife Kathleen Moore Faber and his adult children Hart, Raymond (Sadia), Elise Manuel (Alex), and Anthony, as well as several grandchildren and step-grandchildren. He was pre-deceased by his son Eric.