According to a publicist, Ron Faber passed away on March 26 in New York at the age of 90 after battling lung cancer for two months. Faber was known for his appearances on Broadway in the 1970s, including roles alongside Henry Fonda in First Monday in October and Irene Papas in Medea.
In 1972, Faber won Obie and Drama Desk awards for his role as a political prisoner in Fernando Arrabal’s play And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers, which depicts the Spanish Civil War. He had shaved his head for this role.
In 1981, he performed in The Hotel Play by Wallace Shawn at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. The play had a cast of 70 and was described as “unassailable as a mad theatrical stunt” by Frank Rich in The New York Times.
Faber acted in various off-Broadway productions. These include Hamlet, Mary Stuart, Scenes From Everyday Life, and Woyzeck at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre, Happy Days at the Cherry Lane Theatre, Troilus and Cressida at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre, Lucky Stiff at Playwrights Horizons, and Stonewall Jackson’s House, Times and Appetites of Toulouse Lautrec, The Beauty Part, and Tunnel Fever at the American Place Theater.
Born on February 16th, 1933 in Milwaukee, Faber started doing children’s shows on the radio while studying business at Marquette University.
After becoming a member of Marquette Players, he eventually joined the Van Buren Players. While directing a show there, Eva Le Gallienne, a renowned actress and producer, saw his work. She then secured him a scholarship to direct at the Lucille Lortel White Barn Theater in Westport, Connecticut, which marked the beginning of his professional career.
The films and TV shows on Faber’s onscreen résumé are The Exorcist (1973), The Guernica Tree (1975), The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977), Soup for One (1982), Calling Bobcat (2000), and Navy Seals (1990), and episodes of Law & Order, Kojak and The Edge of Night.
He is survived by his wife, Kathleen, and his children Hart, Raymond, and Elise.
