A 71-year-old theater and TV actor killed by a tour bus as he left an audition was a consummate professional who had returned to his first love – the theater – after a 20-year hiatus, colleagues said yesterday.
Randolph Walker was a character actor best known for his off-Broadway roles and soap-opera appearances on CBS’s “As the World Turns” and ABC’s “One Life to Live.”
He was killed Monday by a New York Apple Tours bus as he walked home to his apartment on 43rd Street after an audition.
“He was the consummate professional,” said Steven DeAngelis, casting director for Grey Advertising. “I think the acting community has lost a special person.”
“He was a wonderful character actor who could change style and dialect in a second,” said Frank Anzalone of the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. Anzalone worked with Walker on the musical “Anything Goes” in 1998.
Walker, who was divorced, worked as a banker to support his family, but in the 1970s returned to acting after a 20-year absence.
“He was just madly in love with the theater and grateful to be in it,” said Walker’s agent, Michael Hartig. “He was proud to participate, and he wasn’t snobby about what roles he played.”
DeAngelis said Walker “wasn’t afraid of going out of town to work on a piece. He’d do projects off-Broadway he felt had merit and value.”
Walker’s most famous role was on Broadway with Yul Brynner in “The King and I” in 1985.
He also toured with regional theaters in New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio and Kansas.
“He was always right on target with his performances,” said Prescott Griffith of The Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron, Ohio. “We were hoping he was going to come back next year.”
In the ego-ridden world of acting, friends said Walker stood out for his good-heartedness.
“There are a lot of talented people you work with in this business who are not kind and generous – he was all that and more as a human being,” said Anzalone.
“The best way of remembering him is to say he was a kind and generous man beloved by the actors who worked with him.”