![]() ![]() I was always dreaming about other things. I shared a bill with Ethel Merman Ethel sang ‘Honey, Stay in Your Own Backyard’ and I did ‘Cross My Heart, Mother, I Love you.'” Bracken didn’t complete grade school: “I attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel but they didn’t know what to do with me. I did shows at the Knights of Columbus Hall. I sang in courtyards, and people would throw coins. “My father was a foreman for the East River Gas Company and my mother demonstrated appliances for Con Edison at Queens Plaza. The youngest of three sons of Irish immigrants, Edward Vincent Bracken was born in Astoria, New York. But even if I only claimed the 11,000 that I’ve got in Equity, nobody’s even close to that.” Those were not Equity shows and they weren’t counted. Paper Mill press representative Charlie Siedenburg introduced Bracken as “affable and congenial,” and the actor - always ready to get a laugh - scowled, “What the hell do you want?” He noted that his record was “unofficial, because I played Hello, Dolly! overseas, I did Sugar Babies in Australia, many shows in Las Vegas. His milestone performance presented an occasion to interview Bracken, which I’d done three times previously. On June 1, 2001, the actor celebrated what he claimed was his 15,000th stage performance, playing the Starkeeper in a Paper Mill Playhouse production of Carousel. “I did it the hard way,” he said, “one wife.” “She was my leading lady, and has been ever since,” he once told me. He was 87, though most sources list the year of his birth as 1920 and Bracken would never confirm the date, saying, with a laugh, “I’d rather have people say, ‘Doesn’t he look wonderful?'” He was married almost 63 years to the former Connie Nickerson, who died in August they met in a tour of What a Life. Following a career of more than 70 years, Eddie Bracken died November 14 in Montclair, New Jersey.
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