Sam Waterston Biography

Actor. Born November 15, 1940, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sam Waterston grew up in New England with his three siblings and parents. His father, George Chychele, emigrated from England and was a semanticist and language teacher in North Andover, Massachusetts. Waterston's mother, Alice Atkinson, was a landscape painter. As a child, he acted in school productions and in plays directed by his father, an amateur dramatist. Waterston made his first stage appearance at age seven, as Creon's page in Jean Anouilh's Antigone, directed by his father.

Before he went to college, Waterston attended the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts, a prestigious preparatory school, where he continued acting. At Yale University, he studied French and history but couldn't stay away from the theater. He joined the Yale Dramat, the university's dramatic society and performed in many productions, including Oedipus Rex and Waiting for Godot. During the production of Waiting for Godot, Waterston said he had an epiphany — that he must become a professional actor.

But Waterston did not pursue his dream right away. During his junior year, he studied abroad at the University of Paris and even tried to give up acting altogether. It was only a few weeks before he gave in and began taking classes at the American Actors Workshop, organized by John Berry, the expatriate American director, who taught theory based on the techniques of Stanislavsky and Chekhov.

Waterston graduated from Yale in 1962 and spent several months in summer stock at the Clinton (Connecticut) Playhouse, where he again appeared in Waiting for Godot. He then moved to New York City and continued to train professionally. He made his New York debut at the Phoenix Theater late in 1962 in Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. He went on a national tour with the show, and in August 1963 it moved to Broadway.

In the next decade, Waterston appeared in many plays, including Thistle in My Bed, Colin, The Knack, Maxime Furland's one-act play Fitz, the world premiere of Sam Shepard's La Turista, and Posterity for Sale. On Broadway, Waterston racked up another list of credits, including the hippie son of a crotchety English general in Halfway Up the Tree, the Indian spokesman John Grass in Arthur Kopit's Indians, and the son in a revival of Noel Coward's 1925 comedy Hay Fever. Waterston received especially high critical praise for his role as Thomas Lewis in the chilling courtroom drama The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, which moved to the Lyceum Theatre in June 1971 after several sold-out months off Broadway.

In mid-1972, Waterston took on the roles of Laertes in Hamlet and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Though his rendition of Laertes faced criticism, it didn't keep him away from Shakespeare. In fact in 1975, he took on the role of Hamlet for the New York Shakespeare Festival. At first his Hamlet was not warmly received either, but by the time the production moved indoors to the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in Lincoln Center Waterston's portrayal was being lauded. Waterston went on to play an unconventional Prospero in The Tempest and Vincentio in Measure for Measure. He had the most critical success, however, in 1972 for his Benedick in A.J. Antoon's production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, which moved to Broadway later that year. For his role, Waterston earned a Drama Desk Award, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and an Obie.