Mandy Patinkin

Actor/singer Mandy Patinkin built an expansive path across theater, cinema, recordings, and small-screen work. Although his adaptable tenor spanned a broad spectrum and his performances carried an intense dramatic flair, cinematic projects rarely showcased his vocal talents, leaving his renown anchored in television drama. Still, he ranked among the foremost interpreters of American musical theater during his era. Early exposure came through his commanding turns on the original cast recordings of Evita and Sunday in the Park with George, followed by the solo showcases Mandy Patinkin in 1989 and Dress Casual in 1990, both of which placed standards and theater numbers under his unfiltered vocal command. The 1998 release Mamaloshen emerged as a deeply personal endeavor centered on Yiddish repertoire, and after an extended recording hiatus he reignited that dimension of his work with the 2019 album Children and Art, shaped by producer and arranger Thomas Bartlett of Doveman.

Born in 1952, Patinkin first explored acting and singing while growing up in Chicago. He enrolled at the University of Kansas before moving on to the Juilliard School of Drama in New York City, ultimately departing without a degree once steady professional stage offers arrived. Throughout the latter half of the 1970s he became a mainstay of the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Public Theater, appearing in numerous productions both off and on Broadway. His screen introduction arrived in 1978 via a minor role in The Big Fix. The Public Theater’s short-lived off-Broadway staging of Leave It to Beaver Is Dead, which opened March 29, 1979, marked his initial notable musical-theater credit. Later that year he secured his breakthrough as Che in the Broadway premiere of Evita (opened September 1979), earning a Tony Award and appearing on the original Broadway cast album that surpassed one million copies sold.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s Patinkin took a string of non-musical film parts, including French Postcards (1979), Last Embrace (1979), Night of the Juggler (1980), Ragtime (1981), and Barbra Streisand’s directorial debut Yentl (1983). He reclaimed Broadway prominence by headlining the musical Sunday in the Park with George (1984), receiving another Tony nomination and featuring on its chart-reaching original Broadway cast album. A 1986 videotaped presentation of the production aired on Showtime and later appeared on home video. The performance cemented his standing as a leading exponent of Stephen Sondheim’s catalog; that reputation was reinforced by his participation in a concert staging of the 1971 Sondheim musical Follies, recorded in September 1985 and issued on an album that charted the following year.

While Patinkin maintained a presence in non-singing film roles—most memorably in the 1987 romantic comedy The Princess Bride—his opportunities to sing expanded during the second half of the decade. CBS Masterworks engaged him for studio cast recordings of South Pacific (1986), Man of La Mancha (1990), and Kismet (1991). That relationship prompted CBS to sign him as a solo artist, resulting in the 1989 debut Mandy Patinkin. He supported the album with the one-man show Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Dress Casual, which premiered at the Public Theater in 1989 before transferring to a limited Broadway run, and the 1990 album Dress Casual drew directly from that material.

Patinkin first sang onscreen in the 1990 film Dick Tracy. Although absent from the official soundtrack, he appeared on Madonna’s related album I’m Breathless, which entered the market in May 1990 and achieved multi-platinum status. The year 1991 proved busy, with roles in True Colors, The Doctor, and Impromptu—the latter marking the feature directorial debut of James Lapine, librettist and director of Sunday in the Park with George. Occasional stage work continued until he returned to Broadway in the successful musical The Secret Garden (opened April 1991) and recorded its original Broadway cast album. After departing that production he joined the replacement cast of Falsettos. By then his high-energy style drew both admiration from devotees and accusations of excess from critics; Forbidden Broadway captured the latter view in its 1991 parody “Super-Frantic, Hyper-Active, Self-Indulgent Mandy” on Forbidden Broadway, Vol. 2, set to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins.

Patinkin appeared in the films Life with Mikey (1993), The Music of Chance (1993), and Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale (1994) before moving to Nonesuch Records for his third album, Experiment, issued in May 1994. A new chapter opened when he was cast as Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on the medical drama Chicago Hope, which debuted September 18, 1994. The series succeeded and earned him an Emmy, yet he exited early in its second season primarily for family reasons, preferring to remain in New York while production occurred in Los Angeles. He later returned for guest appearances and became a semi-regular during the show’s final 1999–2000 season. October 1995 brought his fourth album, Oscar & Steve, a tribute to Oscar Hammerstein II and Stephen Sondheim. Vision problems slowed his schedule in the mid-1990s; he underwent a corneal transplant in 1996 and another in 1998. Even so, he completed film work that included Men with Guns (1997), Lulu on the Bridge (1998), and Elmo in Grouchland (1999), the last of which allowed him to sing. February 1998 saw the release of Mamaloshen, devoted to traditional and contemporary material in Yiddish. He returned to Broadway in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of The Wild Party (opened April 13, 2000), earning another Tony nomination and an appearance on its original Broadway cast album before the show closed after two months.

His sixth album, the children’s collection Kidults, arrived in September 2001. That December he portrayed his former mentor Joseph Papp in the film Piñero. A one-man Sondheim revue titled Celebrating Sondheim toured and yielded the album Sings Sondheim, released October 2002, followed by a limited Broadway engagement at the Henry Miller Theatre in December 2002 and January 2003. Also in 2002 he appeared as himself in the comedy Run, Ronnie, Run, delivering the song “Y’all Are Brutalizing Me.” After continued guest spots on series such as Touched by an Angel, Boston Public, and Law & Order, he accepted a regular role on the Showtime supernatural drama Dead Like Me in 2003. September 2005 marked his return to network television with the CBS crime series Criminal Minds, which ran successfully until he departed at the end of its second season in 2007 after voicing concerns over its violent content; he made a handful of appearances early in the 2007–2008 season.

In 2011 he added the long-running Showtime drama Homeland to his résumé, remaining with the series through its conclusion in 2018. Following the retirement of longtime accompanist and arranger Paul Ford, Patinkin stepped back from recording until pianist and producer Thomas Bartlett introduced him to new sessions. Those informal studio encounters produced the Diary releases of January 27, 2018; April/May 2018; and December 2018. Selected performances from those projects were compiled for Children and Art, issued October 2019.