Bill Irwin Robert Altmans Popeye Debuted 1980

Actor and comedian Bill Irwin is for contributing significantly towards the revival of circus o the 1970s. Born on April 11, 1950 as William Mills Irwin in Santa Monica, California, to Elizabeth (née Mills), a teacher, and Horace G. Irwin, an aerospace engineer, Irwin is best known for his vaudeville-style stage acts. He has also appeared on a number of film and television shows.

Bill Irwin debuted in films in 1980, with Robert Altman's Popeye starring Robin Williams. In 2002, along with Sally Field, he appeared in the replacement cast of The Goat or Who is Sylvia? In 2005, he acted as George in a revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? With Kathleen Turner. In all he has appeared in about 20 films in small supporting roles. He got bigger roles in My Blue Heaven, a 1990 movie featuring Steve Martin and Rick Moranis, and Eight Men Out.

Bill Irwin completed is graduation from Oberlin College in 1973 in theater arts. In the following year he passed out from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. He helped to form the Pickle Family Circus in San Francisco, California in 1975, but soon left it in 1979 to pursue stage work. He shaped up a number of stage shows that included some excellent clowning elements, often in collaboration with composer Doug Skinner. Some of them are The Regard of Flight (1982), Largely New York (1989), Fool Moon (1993), The Harlequin Studies (2003), and Mr. Fox: A Rumination (2004). The last one is a biography of the 19th century clown George Washington Lafayette Fox in which Irwin also incorporated certain autobiographical elements.

1996 saw Bill Irwin performing with The Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps at the 1996 Summer Olympics, in a band on the run sequence where he portrayed the role of Dr. Hubert Peterson of the fictitious Federation of United Marching Associations of America.

Bill Irwin has also starred in a number of dramatic plays, although his fame rests on his theatrical clown work. In 1988, he played on stage the role of Lucky in Waiting for Godot which also saw Steve Martin and Robin Williams performing. As part of the play, he deviated from his prevalent mode of communication on stage involving clown work, i.e. silence and uttered a 500 word long monologue. In 1998, he directed the Roundabout Theatre Company production of A Flea in Her Ear.

Bill Irwin has many awards to his credit and in fact he was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Choreographers Fellowship. What is a significant fact to note that this person was named a Guggenheim Fellow and awarded a 5-year MacArthur Fellowship that is regarded as on of the more prestigious fellowships. Apart from that he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his appearance as George. This was in the play Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Bill Irwin