Tony-Nominated Actor Robert LuPone, Raised On Long Island, Dies At 76

NORTHPORT, NY — Robert LuPone, a Tony-nominated actor who founded the off-Broadway MCC Theatre, died on Saturday. He was 76.

LuPone had been battling pancreatic cancer for three years, Deadline reported.

LuPone was born on July 29th, 1946 in Brooklyn, New York. He was the husband of his beloved Virginia and a proud father to Orlando. He is also survived by his sister, Patti and brother, William.

His passion for the arts began in sixth grade at his Northport elementary school when he saw his younger sister, Patti, dancing at a concert in a colorful hula skirt, Deadline reported. LuPone told his mother he wanted to wear the skirt, and his mother told him to enroll in dance class, and he did so the next year.

LuPone went on to appear in projects including "The Sopranos," "All My Children," "Search for Tomorrow," "Law & Order," and more.

LuPone made his colleagues ask themselves if any play they were considering had a "third act," according to Bernie Telsey and Will Cantler of the MCC Theatre.

"Would we walk out of the theater anxious to go to the bar or restaurant and spend the rest of the night hashing over what we had seen?" Telsey and Cantler wrote in a letter. "That perspective has animated every decision we’ve ever made."

LuPone was "fiercely opinionated" about plays and just as fiercely unedited in his note sessions, according to Telsey and Cantler.

"If Bernie and Will sometimes paused about how or when to give a note, Bob always trusted that charging straight in with passion and candor would win the day, and we came to learn just how often he was right," they wrote. "If we fought often and loudly in our early days, we could never let go of each other and what we were building. The unruly passion of those days ripened into a trust of talking and listening that we hope permeates the whole culture of MCC today.

"Bob was a force, an advocate, complex in the richest ways, overflowing with a youthful enthusiasm, and deeply wise as he looked into our souls," they wrote. "He was our best friend. It is hard to believe that we will never sit down with him again and say 'Let’s talk.'"