Renowned local thespian exits grand stage

Legendary local actor Bob Pinney, known for playing Scrooge and just about every king Shakespeare created, gave his final curtain call Saturday. He was 77.

"Twice my king, always my friend," local actor/director Mark Hennessy said when he heard the news.

"Bob leaves a hole impossible to fill," actress Amy Brooks said. "Terms like ‘Theater royalty,' ‘Top of the A-List,' ‘Theater Titan' come to mind. I twice had the privilege of working with him, both times he was my father. He was brilliant and cantankerous and funny and passionate. There will never be another like him."

Other friends and colleagues said their goodbyes using Shakespeare's words.

"Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest," friend and actress Alysabeth Clements Mosley wrote on the Colorado Springs Arts Blog.

The tall, fastidious actor, known for his grand gestures and larger-than-life presence, is best known for his role as Scrooge in TheatreWorks' various productions of "A Christmas Carol," but he also has distinguished himself in such diverse roles as Dr. Rank in Ibsen's "A Doll House," Krapp in Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape," and Don Armando in Shakespeare's "Love's Labors Lost." He also appeared on local film, television and radio, and taught voice and articulation and acting at Pikes Peak Community College and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Pinney grew up on a ranch in Wyoming and loved theater from his first role - as a mushroom in a high school play. He went on to attend the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

During the summers, he earned money as one of the first actors in the melodramas at the Imperial Hotel in Cripple Creek.

His serious theater career began after college, when he was accepted to study and perform at the American Theatre Wing, the institution behind the annual Tony Awards, in New York.

Pinney worked off-Broadway and off-off. He earned money as a hotel desk clerk and lived on Lipton soup while going to auditions.

"I worked a lot more than my matinee idol-type friends," Pinney told The Gazette in 2002. "I had an unusual look."

In 1972, Pinney had intended to drive from New York to set up a new life in northern California. But he fell in love with the natural beauty of Colorado Springs.

He took a job as a night clerk at a 7-Eleven but quit after the ninth robbery. He worked several other jobs and moonlighted as an actor for the now-defunct theater troupe Star Bar Players.

His rich voice and commanding presence in those Star Bar shows caught the attention of directors at UCCS' professional theater company, TheatreWorks. They asked him to read for the part of the narrator in Shakespeare's "Pericles." He got the part, and that role led to others at TheatreWorks as well as a position teaching voice and articulation and acting at the university.

Since then, Pinney became a fixture of Colorado Springs theater.

Audiences loved him. His peers loved him even more.

Through the ‘90s, he suffered a series of life-threatening illnesses. On the heels of a double pneumonia, he had a massive heart attack, had a pacemaker installed, and a year later had triple bypass surgery.

The local acting community came together in March of 2000 to put on a benefit show that raised $8,000 to cover his medical co-pays. Pinney said he was grateful beyond words.

His illnesses reminded him not only of how many friends he had, but also that he didn't have long for this world. And there was one role in his bucket list that he'd yet to play: King Lear. He considered Lear Shakespeare's greatest challenge, an aging king coming to grips (poorly) with his mortality. He'd been bugging TheatreWorks artistic director Murray Ross for nearly a decade to stage it. Ross worried about whether Pinney was physically up for such a rigorous role.

But in the summer of 2002, Ross relented. Pinney donned the crown and gave the performance of his career.
"To the role of a lifetime, Pinney brings a lifetime of experience, and his journey from indulged monarch to broken madman is heartbreaking," then-Gazette theater critic Mark Arnest wrote.

Still, when Arnest remembers Pinney it won't be as Lear but as Scrooge.

"Bob was a fairly unhappy person when I met him," Arnest said. "One of the great things about knowing him was watching him blossom in his later years. Perhaps his heart problems motivated him to appreciate life more. That's why his quintessential role was not Lear, but Scrooge. Lear was the role of a lifetime, but Scrooge was the role of Bob's lifetime. His Scrooge opened up so convincingly because Bob knew just what it meant to do that, sans ghosts."

Those who knew Pinney or his work are encouraged to share their memories at csartsblog.freedomblogging.com.

TheatreWorks will host a memorial gathering 6 p.m. May 4 at the Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater on east end of the UCCS campus.