The Wrong Damn Film

Keene Curtis, a veteran Broadway, television and film actor who was familiar to many viewers the snippy upstairs restaurant owner John Allen Hill for the final three seasons of Cheers, died on October 13th of complications of Alzheimer's disease at a retirement center in Bountiful, Utah. He was 79. Born in Salt Lake City in 1923, Curtis grew up in Bountiful, in a family that adored theater. His father built his young son a miniature stage out of an old chiffonier, using a towel for a curtain. Curtis soon began to make his own little theaters out of cardboard boxes and put on shows for the neighborhood kids. No doubt of his calling, Curtis went on to receive his bachelor's and master's degrees in Theater Arts from the University of Utah, where he was a student actor and cheerleader. He had returned to college after spending three years in the Navy, and made his film debut when Orson Welles discovered him for his production of Macbeth (1948) and cast him in the role of Lennox, and launching his career. Despite the promising film debut, Curtis dedicated himself to the stage for the next twenty years, but it was not until he won a Tony Award in 1971 as best featured actor in a musical for The Rothschilds did his profile rise. After his stint as Daddy Warbucks in the Broadway production of Annie Curtis began to venture into television and films, where his baldpate and rich diction enlivened many programs, particularly in comedies where he made a superb comic foil. In addition to his role on Cheers, Curtis’ other television credits include: MASH Ally McBeal, The Drew Carey Show and Caroline in the City. Among Curtis’ most notable films: Heaven Can Wait (1978) The Buddy System (1984), Sliver (1993) and Fred Schepisi’s I.Q. (1994) where Curtis turned in a charming cameo as President Dwight Eisenhower. In 1998, Curtis endowed a scholarship at the University of Utah to help graduates of the school's Actor Training Program launch their careers. He also donated to the university his Tony Award and 48 boxes of theater memorabilia and personal papers, including a 1961 letter from Noel Coward, who praised Curtis' "firmness, patience, efficiency and most of all your ability to handle people with tact and imagination." He is survived by his sister-in-law, nieces and nephews. Michael T. Toole