Bob Ward died on January 12, 2025 at his home in North Hollywood after enduring two strokes and a brief battle with dementia.
“Many of you will recall Bob rolling out Elizabethan invective as Simon Eyre in the Dramat’s production of The Shoemaker’s Holiday when we were at Yale,” says Steve McCorkle ’66. “Many years into his career as an actor in LA he was auditioning for something with a speech from that play. The director said it was an unusual choice of material, but he had seen a wonderful performance of the play at Yale. Bob said, ‘That was me!’”
“Bob was a brilliant actor who didn’t get the career recognition he deserved,” adds Kelly Monaghan. “He was electrifying as Vladimir in Waiting For Godot our senior year. That production was one of the best Godots I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a bunch.
“When he turned pro there was already a Bob Ward in Actor’s Equity. So he adopted his middle name and became Robert Machray. After starting off with a small role at Hartford Stage in Portage to San Christobal, he headed for Hollywood.
“Bob was rather svelte in his younger years. Indeed, he once played Suzanne Somers’ date in an episode of Three’s Company. But as the years progressed, so did his weight, which bothered him at first. But he came to accept it, and the avoirdupois served him well. At over six feet and 300 pounds, he cut an imposing figure.
“In Shakespeare, he specialized in Falstaff, appearing in The Merry Wives of Windsor in Shakespeare festivals in New Jersey, Alabama, and New Mexico. He played Santa Claus in a series of very funny television commercials. He created an uncannily accurate portrait of Orson Welles in a play which I had the good fortune to see before the project faltered, as too often happens in show business. Backstage remarked that he had ‘the magnificent voice, stature and acting chops to play’ the legendary filmmaker.
Bob served as the artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Classical Theatre Lab in the 1990s and acted for The Old Globe, the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, The Matrix Theater Company, South Coast Repertory, Hartford Stage and Playwrights Horizons, and many other companies. He portrayed Dobbins, a perennial victim of pranks at the bar, on NBC’s Cheers from 1990 to 1993.
He also appeared in the films Cutting Class (1989), A Time to Remember (1998) and The Master of Disguise (2002), handled two characters as a voice actor for the 2001 video game Star Wars: Rogue Squadron I, and played a fainting Santa in a long-running series of commercials for M&Ms (He used to call them “my TV show.”).
“The last time I saw Bob on stage was as Fatty Arbuckle in Mack and Mable at Goodspeed Opera House” says Kelly. “I miss him terribly.”