Broadway legend and Hollywood star Tony Roberts passed away on February 7, 2025.
His father, Ken Roberts; his mother, Norma; and later his stepmother, Sydelle, whom Ken married after Norma died, became my dear friends.
Ken was a Golden Age radio announcer whose career spanned decades. The Roberts family owned a summer house in Ocean Beach.
Myron Bickhart and Milton Soren, my neighbors in Cherry Grove, became friends with the Roberts family. Ken and Norma, and later Ken and Sydelle, would visit us in the Grove, often accompanied by Tony.
Tony’s acting career took off both on Broadway and in Hollywood, where he had leading roles in movies like Serpico and, of course, in Woody Allen films like Annie Hall, Play It Again Sam, and Hannah and Her Sisters, among others.
He appeared in numerous Broadway shows, and I would always go backstage to congratulate him afterward.
When he was in Victor/Victoria as Toddy, my partner, Michael Fitzgerald, and I went backstage with a batch of cookies I had baked for the cast. He introduced Michael and me to Julie Andrews and the rest of the cast, and later sent me a lovely thank-you note.
He was a genuine New Yorker, and I would frequently encounter him on the streets of Manhattan, particularly in the Broadway area.
Once, for reasons I can’t recall, I was unable to go backstage after one of Tony’s shows, Last Night. However, I ran into Tony two days later, and he said, “I heard you were at the theatre the other night. Why didn’t you come backstage?”
David Anthony Roberts was born on October 22, 1939. David, as he was called in his youth, attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan (now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts). He studied acting at Northwestern University in Illinois, which was recommended by a summer neighbor from Fire Island who taught acting: Lee Strasberg.
In 1965, he replaced Robert Redford in Neil Simon’s Broadway hit Barefoot in the Park and also took over for Robert Klein in They’re Playing Our Song. Those performances were followed by roles in The Sisters Rosensweig, Cabaret, Sugar, Arsenic and Old Lace, Doubles, The Allergist’s Wife, The Royal Family, and many others.
In maturity, his career experienced a resurgence when he returned to the Broadway stage in 2007 with the musical Xanadu. In 2017, he played the role of Max Kellerman in the television movie version of Dirty Dancing.
Tony married Jennifer Lyons in 1969, and they divorced in 1975. His daughter, Nicole Burley, survives him.
