Biography
Since the late 1980s, Charles Kimbrough has been most widely recognized by audiences for embodying Jim Dial, the poised, long-serving network news anchor on the comedy series Murphy Brown. Prior to that period of television prominence, however, he had already established himself as a respected presence on the New York stage, appearing on two landmark original cast recordings—Company and Sunday in the Park With George. As the nephew of writer Emily Kimbrough, whose best-known work was her joint book with Cornelia Otis Skinner titled Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (later filmed and televised), Kimbrough drew part of his theatrical inspiration from his aunt’s accounts of the performing arts. Following earlier triumphs with the Milwaukee Repertory Company, he arrived in New York and secured attention in 1970 through his well-received performance in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company, an engagement that also marked his first appearance on a cast album. His principal subsequent contribution to recorded music came with Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George, which earned him a Tony Award nomination; he has since been included on multiple Broadway anthologies and supplied both voice and singing for Disney’s animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame, notably in a charming duet with Mary Wickes that appears on the accompanying soundtrack.