Wesley Addy, an actor who was well versed in classics from Shakespeare to Shaw and who frequently appeared in roles opposite his wife, Celeste Holm, died on Tuesday at Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in New York City.
Onstage, Mr. Addy often communicated an air of carefully cultivated distinction. Though he was born in Omaha, Neb., he could easily assume the manners of an English gentleman.
He majored in economics at the University of California at Los Angeles and acted in summer theater on Martha’s Vineyard.
In 1935, he made his first stage appearance in New York City with Orson Welles in Archibald MacLeish’s Panic. The next year, he doubled as Marcellus and Fortinbras in Leslie Howard’s production of Hamlet. He then joined Maurice Evans’ repertory company and played Bernardo in an uncut Hamlet, Hotspur in Henry IV, Part 1 and Orsino to Helen Hayes’ Viola in Twelfth Night. He also played Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he returned to acting, appearing with Katharine Cornell in Antigone and Candida, in which Mr. Addy played Morell and Marlon Brando was Marchbanks. Through the 1940s and ’50s, he was frequently on Broadway.
He played leading roles in Jed Harris’ production of The Traitor by Herman Wouk, Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest, Louis Calhern’s King Lear and Ruth Gordon’s Leading Lady.
His films included The Big Knife and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
