1 month ago
Edward Graczyk, champion known for Come Back To The Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, nan 1982 Broadway play and movie adjustment some directed by Robert Altman, died successful Sidney, Ohio, connected February 11 pursuing a lengthy illness. He was 84.
His decease was announced coming by his agent.
Born successful Pennsylvania successful 1941, Graczyk had written respective children’s plays early successful his profession when, successful nan mid-1970s, he drove done Marfa, Texas, nan mini municipality wherever nan 1956 movie Giant, starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, had been shot. That experience, on pinch nan wide closings of old-fashioned five-and-dime stores, inspired Graczyk to pen nan activity that would beryllium his legacy.
The play, he erstwhile said, “can only beryllium described arsenic nan consequence of my ain observations and frustrations pinch advancement that ignores a past; nan deficiency of personalization and pridefulness and nan recurring request of group to build facades to conceal nan truths of their lives. It is nan destruction that makes abnormal group look normal and nan sad group look happy. A individual study which I consciousness makes nan group I constitute astir colorful, theatrical, but astir of all, honest.”
After his little enactment successful Texas, Graczyk moved to Ohio and served arsenic nan Artistic Director of nan Players Theatre successful Columbus wherever nan first type of Come Back To The Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean premiered successful September 1976. In early 1980, nan play was staged successful New York City pinch filmmaker Altman directing successful his Broadway debut.
The Broadway accumulation starring Karen Black, Cher, Sandy Dennis and Kathy Bates was not well-received and closed connected April 4, 1982, aft hardly 2 months. Still, Altman remained an admirer and decided to movie nan accumulation pinch nan original cast. That aforesaid year, nan movie type won nan Gold Hugo for Best Feature astatine nan 18th Chicago International Film Festival and Graczyk won nan Best Screenplay Award astatine nan Belgium International Film Festival nan aforesaid year.
Cher was nominated for a Golden Globe grant and an LA Film Critics grant for her capacity arsenic Sissy, 1 of nan long-ago five-and-dime labor and James Dean instrumentality nine members who return for a reunion. In summation to Sissy, nan group’s reunion is attended by, among others, Mona (Sandy Dennis), who claims to person a boy fathered by Dean and nan mysterious Joanne (Karen Black), who has a concealed of her ain to share.
The playwright followed up Jimmy Dean with A Murder of Crows, which opened astatine New York’s South Side Theater successful September 1988. In nan early 1990s, he wrote a one-man show pinch Keith Carradine entitled My Time Ain’t Long. By 2003, Graczyk was surviving successful Ohio’s Miami Valley area and was still penning plays, though successful his words, “There are presently respective scripts moving astir successful my machine looking for an exit.”
His astir caller play, The Blue Moon Dancing, premiered successful Dallas successful August, 2010. Throughout his career, Graczyk besides served arsenic a theatre designer and administrator. He worked pinch various institutions including Hartford Stage Company and Erie Playhouse.
A philharmonic based connected Jimmy Dean had its world premiere successful June, 2025 astatine TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.
Graczyk is survived by his partner of much than years, Jeffrey Billiel, and his sister Shirley.
