THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIESMONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2020 N D7Wilford Brimley, a portly actor
with a walrus mustache who
found his niche playing cantan-
kerous coots in “Absence of Mal-
ice,” “The Natural,” “Cocoon” and
other films, died on Saturday in a
hospital in St. George, Utah. He
was 85.
He had been sick for two
months with a kidney ailment,
said his agent, Lynda Bensky.
Mr. Brimley had played the
Walton Mountain resident Horace
Brimley in a recurring role on the
television series “The Waltons”
when Michael Douglas, the
producer of “The China Syn-
drome,” gave him his break-
through role: Ted Spindler, an as-
sistant engineer at a nuclear
plant.
In the film’s climactic scene, in
which he is being interviewed by a
crusading television reporter
played by Jane Fonda, Mr. Brim-
ley delivered an impassioned de-
fense of his boss (Jack Lemmon),
who had precipitated a crisis to
draw public attention to defects at
the plant.
In an article for The New York
Times singling out Mr. Brimley as
a talent to watch, Janet Maslin
called him “the mustachioed man
who very nearly steals the ending
of ‘China Syndrome’ from Jane
Fonda.”
Mr. Brimley followed up with a
small but memorable perform-
ance as a pugnacious district at-
torney in “Absence of Malice” and
with supporting roles in “The Nat-
ural,” as the put-upon manager of
a losing baseball team, and “The
Firm,” in which he played the sin-
ister head of security at an un-
savory law firm.
In Ron Howard’s 1985 fantasy
film “Cocoon,” Mr. Brimley deliv-
ered one of his most engaging per-
formances, as a Florida retiree
who, with Don Ameche and Hume
Cronyn, regains his youth after
swimming in a magic pool.
“Wilford’s a testy guy, not an
easy guy to work with all the time,
but he has great instincts,” Mr.
Howard told The Times in 1985.
“Many of his scenes were totally
improvised.”
In the 1980s and 1990s Mr.
Brimley was a television fixture
as a spokesman for Quaker Oats,
gruffly telling viewers to eat the
cereal because “it’s the right thing
to do,” and Liberty Medical, a
company selling diabetes-testing
supplies. Mr. Brimley learned that
he had the disease in the late
1970s.
When interviewed, Mr. Brimleyplayed down his talent; he de-
scribed himself as “just a guy, just
a feller” to The Powell Tribune of
Wyoming in 2014. “I can’t talk
about acting,” he said. “I don’t
know anything about it. I was just
lucky enough to get hired.”
Anthony Wilford Brimley was
born on Sept. 27, 1934, in Salt Lake
City. His father, a real estate bro-
ker, sold the family farm in 1939
and moved his family to Santa
Monica, Calif.Tony, as he was known, dropped
out of school at 14 and worked as a
cowboy in Idaho, Nevada and Ari-
zona before enlisting in the Ma-
rine Corps, which sent him to the
Aleutian Islands. After leaving the
service, he worked as a ranch
hand, wrangler and blacksmith.
Briefly, he was a bodyguard for
Howard Hughes.
He began shoeing horses for
television and film westerns, and
gradually took nonspeaking roleson horseback. He appeared as a
stuntman in “Bandolero!,” in an
uncredited role in “True Grit” and
as a blacksmith in the television
series “Kung Fu.”
After “The China Syndrome,”
he worked steadily. He played
Harry, the former manager of the
country singer played by Robert
Duvall, in “Tender Mercies,” and
the eccentric tycoon Bradley
Tozer in the Tom Selleck adven-
ture film “High Road to China,” be-fore returning to the role of Ben
Luckett in “Cocoon: The Return.”
From 1986 to 1988 he had a star-
ring role as Gus Witherspoon, the
opinionated but lovable grandfa-
ther in the NBC series “Our
House,” yet again confounding the
usual Hollywood aging process by
portraying, in his early 50s, a
character who was 65.
“I’m never the leading man,” he
told The Dallas Morning News in- “I never get the girl. And I
never get to take my shirt off. I
started by playing fathers to guys
who were 25 years older than I
was.”
In part because of his television
commercials, Mr. Brimley made
the transition from actor to comic
source material. John Goodman
did a parody of his diabetes com-
mercial on “Saturday Night Live,”
and in 1997 he appeared in a cam-
eo role on “Seinfeld” as the short-
tempered postmaster general,
Henry Atkins.
He had a pleasant singing voice
and recorded several albums of
jazz standards, including “This
Time the Dream’s on Me” and
“Wilford Brimley With the Jeff
Hamilton Trio.” He could more
than hold his own as a guitarist
too.
Mr. Brimley’s first wife, the for-
mer Lynne Bagley, died in 2000.
He is survived by his wife, Bever-
ly, and three sons from his first
marriage, James, John and
William. Another son, Lawrence,
died in infancy. Complete informa-
tion on other survivors was not
immediately available.
As Mr. Howard noted, Mr. Brim-
ley came by his cussedness natu-
rally. In “Miracles and Mercies,” a
documentary about the making of
“Tender Mercies,” Mr. Duvall re-
called a set-to between Mr. Brim-
ley and the director Bruce Beres-
ford, who had made a suggestion
about how Mr. Brimley might play
the role of Harry.
“Now look, let me tell you some-
thing, I’m Harry,” he recalled Mr.
Brimley telling Mr. Beresford.
“Harry’s not over there, Harry’s
not over here. Until you fire me or
get another actor, I’m Harry, and
whatever I do is fine ‘cause I’m
Harry.”
Wilford Brimley, 85, Cranky ‘Cocoon’ Star Who Peddled Oatmeal, Dies
By WILLIAM GRIMES‘I never get the girl.
And I never get to
take my shirt off.’
COLUMBIA PICTURESMONDADORI VIA GETTY IMAGES TRISTAR PICTURESWilford Brimley, left, in a
scene from “Absence of Mal-
ice.” Bottom left, Mr. Brimley,
left, in “Cocoon” with, from
left, Hume Cronyn and Don
Ameche. Below right, Richard
Farnsworth, left, and Mr.
Brimley in “The Natural.”Aimee Ortiz contributed reporting.
Lady Red Couture, a comedian,
singer and talk-show host who
called herself “the largest live-
singing drag queen in captivity,”
and who became a mentor to
younger drag performers, died on
July 25 in Los Angeles. She was
43.
The cause was complications of
cyclic vomiting syndrome, a con-
dition thought to be related to mi-
graines, said Jonny McGovern,
her co-host on “Hey Qween!,” a
popular L.G.B.T.Q. talk show that
began on YouTube and is now also
available on Amazon Prime.
In her audition reel for Season 6
of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Lady
Red offered a proud mantra of her-
self. “I live, I breathe, I do every-
thing in drag — this is me 24/7,”
she said. “I am nothing to play
with. Especially with my mouth.”
Like some of the influential
early drag queens, she also identi-
fied as a transgender woman. In
an Instagram video posted in
June in response to the Black
Lives Matter protests, she de-
scribed herself as “a Black Ameri-
can trans woman who is making a
difference in this world.”
“At a time when the word au-
thentic is overused, honey, she
was unique,” said Lady Bunny, the
New York City drag queen impre-
saria, who toured with Lady Red.
“She was 6-foot-7, wore Size 16
Converse sneakers with an
evening gown” — she also stood 7-
foot-2 in heels — “and wore the
showbiz eyelashes during the
day.”
“And,” Lady Bunny added, “she
would drop her voice real low to
freak you out.”
Though she was never chosen
for “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Lady
Red cut a radiant figure within the
Los Angeles drag scene, perform-
ing in clubs like Hamburger
Mary’s and the District and on
“Hey Qween!,” where she served
as a vivacious Ed McMahon to Mr.
McGovern’s bearded Johnny Car-
son.
“To meet her was to fall in love
with her,” Frank DeCaro, the au-
thor of “Drag: Combing Throughthe Big Wigs of Show Business”
(2019), said in an email. “She was
one of the few people about whom
I never heard anyone say any-
thing shady. ”
Younger drag performers were
drawn to her. Ginger Minj, who
competed on “RuPaul’s Drag
Race,” described Lady Red as “the
mother hen” of the circuit, adding:
“Everybody knew her and looked
up to her. You could always go to
her with your problems.”
Lady Red Couture was born in
Los Angeles on May 30, 1977. Her
mother, Kathleen Barnes, was a
nondenominational Christian
minister, and the two did not see
eye to eye.
“She’s a wonderful person — to
other people,” Lady Red said onher “Drag Race” audition reel in
2017.
Her father left the family when
she was young and was not a part
of her life, said Krystle Butler,
Lady Red’s younger sister. Her
sister and her mother survive her.
At George Washington Prepar-
atory High School in Los Angeles,
Lady Red acted in plays and
played trombone and tuba in the
marching band, performing in the
Tournament of Roses Parade. But
she was also picked on by her
peers and fought with her mother.
The arguments escalated until,
Lady Red said, her mother told
her, “If you want to be a girl, go be
a girl,” and threw her out of the
house. “It hurt me a lot,” she add-
ed.
It was a difficult relationship,
Ms. Butler said, but it was based in
love. “My mother is very religious,
so at first she had to digest the
whole concept. But over time she
adjusted, because God loves ev-
eryone.”
“She said, ‘Whatever you de-
cide to be, be the best at it,’ ” Ms.
Butler added. “ ‘If you’re going to
be a queen, be the best queen.’ ”
Lady Red received an associate
degree from the Salt Lake Com-
munity College Culinary Institute
in Utah and worked briefly as a
chef with Amtrak. After returning
to Los Angeles, she held a variety
of jobs, including “security diva”
at Gym Sportsbar and “budten-
der” at a MedMen cannabis dis-
pensary, both in West Hollywood.
She started performing in drag
in 1995, according to her Internet
Movie Database profile. Mr. Mc-Govern, a comedian and actor,
saw her in clubs and tapped her to
be his co-host on “Hey Qween!”
The show, which began in 2014,
rose in parallel with “RuPaul’s
Drag Race,” becoming a go-to spot
for cast members to “spill some
tea,” or tell some truth.
During the first season, Mr. Mc-
Govern learned that Lady Red
was living in a transient hotel and
invited her to move in with him.
He was among the few who ever
saw her without full makeup, he
said.
“Lady Red’s look was 1,000 per-
cent all the time,” Mr. McGovern
said. “She was calling herself a
full-time drag queen before ac-
cepting that she was a woman, not
just a drag queen. She lived a life
with glamour, but as a Black trans
woman, there was a lot of hard-
ship as well.”
She never brought her hard-
ships to the stage. The drag queen
Jackie Beat recalled one tour
when she and Sherry Vine, an-
other drag queen, were in a bad
mood before a show. “That’s a bad
place to be when it’s time to sit
down and paint your face and then
entertain a theater filled with peo-
ple who, frankly, don’t care what
you’re going through,” she said by
email.
But Lady Red was not having it.
Whenever she was not feeling it,
she told them, she would look in
the mirror and tell herself, “Get in
the mood, bitch!”
“We roared with laughter and
our mood instantly improved,”
Jackie Beat said. “We say that all
the time now.”Lady Red Couture, 43, a Comedian
And ‘the Mother Hen’ of a Drag Scene
‘A Black American
trans woman who is
making a difference.’
By JOHN LELANDHARRY JAMES HANSONCRAIG BARRITT/WIREIMAGE“I live, I breathe, I do every-
thing in drag,” Lady Red Cou-
ture once said. Below, Lady
Red at a Los Angeles Film
Festival party in 2011.Cohen, William
Leslie, Patricia
Stone, RobertCOHEN—William,
96, of Chelsea, New York has
passed on July 28, 2020. He
and his identical twin, Arnold,
were renowned Court Repor-
ters, each winning stenograp-
hic speed contests in the '50s.
He was an emblematic
professional, a generous
uncle, and an altruistic men-
tor.LESLIE—Patricia Mae,
91, passed to her next life on
May 20, 2020, at Mt. Sinai hos-
pital in New York City follow-
ing a stroke. Born June 8, 1928
in Toledo, Ohio, she moved to
the City in her 20s and re-
mained a resident through
her life. She married Bruce
Leslie, her husband for near-
ly 50 years; he preceded her
in death. A memorial is not
yet planned.STONE—Robert,
who was the Chief Executive
Officer of Blythedale Child-
ren'sHospitalinValhalla,
New York, died of cancer on
Saturday, August 1, 2020. He
was 91 years old. Bob ob-
tained a Masters in Hospital
Administration at Columbia
University and worked at the
Jewish Hospital of Saint Lo-
uis in Missouri and Derby
HospitalinDerby,CTas
assistant directors before he
was appointed to Blythedale,
where he worked as the CEO
for 40 years. During that time,
he served as President of the
Hospital Association of New
York State and taught at Co-
lumbia University School of
Medicine for 10 years. After
retiring from Blythedale, he
served for almost 20 years on
theBoard of Directors of
White Plains Hospital,in
White Plains, NY. Bob's first
marriage ended in divorceand he was predeceased by
his second wife, Nancy K.
Stone. He is survived by his
daughter, Lesley N. Stone, his
beloved grandchildren, Tom
and Megan Hurlburt, his step-- children Peter (Betsy)
Kempner, James (Sara)
Kempner and Carrie Getz,
and their children, along with
his loving nephews and
nieces. Finally, he is survived
by his “forever friend,” Judi
Koffsky,andherchildren,
with whom he bound up his
life. Contributions in his me-
mory may be made to Blyth-
edale Children's Hospital or
White Plains Hospital.
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