A familiar face for years in movies, on television and especially on Broadway, he had a particular affinity for the work of George Bernard Shaw.<\/b>
\nPhilip Bosco, a character actor who was a familiar face for years in movies, on television and especially on the Broadway stage, where he won a Tony Award and was nominated for five more, died on Monday night at his home in Haworth, N. J. He was 88.
His daughter Celia Bosco said the cause was complications of dementia.
A tall man with a hearty manner and a voice that could shift easily from stentorian boom to silken purr, Mr. Bosco received his first Tony Award nomination for his Broadway debut, in 1960, and his last for his role as the angriest member of the jury in a murder trial in the 2004 production of Reginald Rose\u2019s intense drama \u201cTwelve Angry Men.\u201d
Known for his versatility, Mr. Bosco won his one Tony, in 1989, for portraying a buffoonish opera impresario in Ken Ludwig\u2019s farce \u201cLend Me a Tenor.\u201d
As late as 1979, when he had already appeared in more than 30 Broadway productions, he told The New York Times, with more resignation than rancor, \u201cThere are a lot of actors like me who have been working a long time, yet no one knows you outside the theater world.\u201d He added, \u201cYou could say all of us are waiting in the wings for that great role.\u201d
If he never did have that one great role, he had more than a few memorable ones in a career that lasted more than 50 years. Many of those roles were written by George Bernard Shaw.
Although he told one interviewer that he had not \u201cfollowed any particular course in pursuing Shaw\u201d (while acknowledging that it was \u201cheavenly for an actor to wrap his tongue around those delicious words\u201d), it became his specialty; Mr. Bosco played more than a dozen Shavian roles.
When he played the voluble munitions maker Andrew Undershaft in Shaw\u2019s \u201cMajor Barbara\u201d at the Circle in the Square in 1980, Walter Kerr wrote admiringly in The Times that Mr. Bosco could \u201cmaintain a machine-gun pace without losing a gleeful syllable or an ounce of Shaw\u2019s art.\u201d Frank Rich, reviewing Mr. Bosco\u2019s performance as the British general John Burgoyne in \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Disciple,\u201d Shaw\u2019s Revolutionary War drama, at the same theater in 1988, wrote, \u201cWhile there are no sure things in the New York theater, the partnership of George Bernard Shaw and Philip Bosco comes close.\u201d
Two of Mr. Bosco\u2019s Tony nominations were for his work in Shaw plays: for featured actor in \u201cHeartbreak House\u201d (1983) and lead actor in \u201cYou Never Can Tell\u201d (1987). (His other nomination was for another Ken Ludwig farce, \u201cMoon Over Buffalo\u201d in 1995, in which he and Carol Burnett played a bickering theatrical couple.) Fittingly, his final Broadway appearance was in another production of \u201cHeartbreak House,\u201d this time in the lead role, in 2006.
Mr. Bosco was well established as a repertory actor when he earned his first Tony nomination, for his supporting performance in \u201cRape of the Belt,\u201d a comic take on Greek mythology that lasted only nine performances.
Before taking that part he had spent two years with the Arena Stage company in Washington. He later worked with the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Conn., before beginning a long stint with the Lincoln Center Repertory Company. In 1981 he estimated that he had appeared in more than 70 productions, of everything from Sophocles to Tennessee Williams, with those companies and others.
Philip Michael Bosco was born on Sept. 26,1930, in Jersey City. His father, Philip Lupo Bosco, was a carnival worker; his mother, Margaret (Thek) Bosco, was a crossing guard. As a young man, he drove a truck.
He attended the Catholic University of America in Washington before, as he recalled, being asked to leave because his focus on acting had caused him to neglect his studies. After serving in the Army, he was allowed to return to the university and obtained his degree. Before long he was performing at the Arena Stage.
He married his college sweetheart, Nancy Ann Dunkle, in 1957. In addition to his wife and his daughter Celia, he is survived by three other daughters, Lisa Bosco-Tafro, Diane Bosco and Jennifer Bosco; three sons, Philip, Christopher and John; two brothers, Donald and David; and 15 grandchildren.
Among Mr. Bosco\u2019s many other roles on Broadway were Mack the Knife in \u201cThe Threepenny Opera\u201d (1976), Captain Queeg in \u201cThe Caine Mutiny Court-Martial\u201d (1983) and the renowned physicist Niels Bohr in Michael Frayn\u2019s \u201cCopenhagen\u201d (2000), a performance that many said should have earned him another Tony nomination.
He often had his next project lined up in advance. \u201cI don\u2019t like long runs,\u201d he once said. \u201cYou get in a rut.\u201d And, he added, \u201cI have never turned down a job because there is not enough money.\u201d
He did, however, turn down many movie roles, even when there was more than enough money. In 1986 he told The Times that he had been offered a seven-year film contract early in his career but declined it because he did not want to live in Hollywood.
He rarely accepted a role that involved filming in a distant location, mostly because of a lifelong fear of flying. And he was not a fan of the filmmaking process.
\u201cYou rush, rush to get into one scene,\u201d he explained, \u201cand then you sit and wait four hours before you get into another.\u201d
He nevertheless amassed an impressive filmography starting in the 1980s, working for directors like Mike Nichols (\u201cWorking Girl\u201d) and Woody Allen (\u201cDesconstructing Harry,\u201d \u201cAnother Woman,\u201d \u201cShadows and Fog\u201d) and playing small but crucial roles \u2014 usually as an authority figure of some kind \u2014 in hit movies like \u201cTrading Places\u201d (1983), \u201cChildren of a Lesser God\u201d (1986), \u201cThree Men and a Baby\u201d (1987) and \u201cMy Best Friend\u2019s Wedding\u201d (1997).
Mr. Bosco was also seen frequently on television, especially in the days when New York was still a center of TV activity. He appeared on soap operas (\u201cAs the World Turns,\u201d \u201cGuiding Light,\u201d \u201cRyan\u2019s Hope\u201d), dramatic anthologies (\u201cArmstrong Circle Theater,\u201d \u201cGreat Performances\u201d) and prime-time dramas (\u201cThe Defenders\u201d).
Later, like numerous other New York actors, he was on both \u201cLaw & Order\u201d and, in a recurring role as a judge, \u201cLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit.\u201d He won a Daytime Emmy Award for his performance as a toymaker on an \u201cABC Afterschool Special\u201d in 1987.
For all Mr. Bosco\u2019s accomplishments, his philosophy of acting was simple. He was dismissive of what he called \u201cthe Actors Studio ideal\u201d of naturalism. As he told The Times in 1981:
\u201cThe only real way to learn to be an actor is to act. All the theory is meaningless unless you really do it. You\u2019ve got to get out there, man. You\u2019ve got to jump in the pool.\u201d<\/p>\n