Trivia

Deaf actor, born to deaf parents.

In 1967, he helped establish the National Theatre of the Deaf in Connecticut. His co-founders included Edna Simon Levine, a psychologist who specialized in deafness, and Broadway set designer David Hays, who had worked on the production of "The Miracle Worker".

He graduated in 1952 from Gallaudet, a university for deaf students, where he participated in campus theater as an actor and director. He received a master's degree in special education from San Francisco State University in 1959.

He wanted to be an actor but had little hope of that, until he attended a performance by Marcel Marceau, the world-renowned French mime. He became a student of Marceau in France, and began appearing in nightclubs and theaters in the United States, becoming known as "America's master of mime".