Seasoned stage and film actor Jered Barclay, who appeared in vaudeville and provided voiceovers for the animated television series Smurfs and Transformers, has passed away at the age of 91.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Barclay died Saturday in North Hollywood from MDS Leukemia, actress Myra Turley, his longtime friend with whom he performed in the two-person play A Tantalizing, directed by Harvey Perr, announced.
Barclay began his nine-decade career in 1934 at the age of three, appearing in vaudeville with Judy Garland, Shirley Temple, and Sammy Davis Jr. He was also a director, photojournalist, and acting coach. At age 6, he started acting on the radio. At age 12, he travelled with the Clyde Beatty Circus, and at age 14, he made his theatrical debut.
The Seattle native moved to Los Angeles after receiving a B.A. in drama from the University of Washington. He appeared in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour (1961), as well as Roger Corman's 1958 sci-fi fantasy film War of the Satellites, in which he played John Compo.
In movies like Rawhide, Bonanza, Cheyenne, Bronco, The Dakotas, Lawman, Colt.45, and Gunslinger, he played Jerry Barclay. Then, in 1962, he relocated to New York to take the stage in two plays by Edward Albee, Jerry in Eddie Parone's Zoo Story and a young man in Alan Schneider's The American Dream.
Alongside James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons, Barclay played Meff in James Saunders' Next Time I'll Sing to You in 1963. On Broadway, he also played Deuperret in Peter Weiss' Marat Sade and Ludwig Max von Kupfer in John Osborne's A Patriot for Me.
Barclay provided voiceovers for several animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera, including Foofur, The Little Rascals, Challenge of the GoBots, The Dukes, The Kwicky Koala Show, and The Smurfs. In The Transformers, he furthermore portrayed Cerebros.
Rue McClanahan, Dixie Carter, Johnny Depp, Liza Minnelli, Lily Tomlin, Patrick Swayze, and Josh Brolin were among the actors who studied acting under Barclay beginning in the 1980s. He started working as a travel photojournalist in 1993, covering all seven continents and 108 nations for 27 publications
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