Edward Herrmann Overboard (1987)
Edward Herrmann (July 21, 1943 – December 31, 2014) played Grant Stayton III in Overboard (1987).
Herrmann was Hollywood's go-to WASP establishment figure
By 1987 Herrmann had built a fifteen-year specialty in playing the educated American patrician — the Yale graduate, the senator, the husband at the dinner with the silver flatware. He had won a Tony for his Broadway debut in Mrs. Warren's Profession (1976), a Best Supporting Actor Emmy nomination for Eleanor and Franklin (1976) where he played Franklin D. Roosevelt opposite Jane Alexander, and a follow-up Emmy nomination for Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years (1977). The FDR performances had fixed him as the recognizable face for that kind of upper-class American voice.
"He was the FDR of his generation. Whenever a producer needed a Roosevelt, an Adams, or a Roosevelt-adjacent man of stature, Edward was the first call." — NYT obituary, The New York Times (December 2014)
The Stayton role uses the FDR voice for comedy. Grant is what the voice sounds like when the principles have been removed: the diction, the diction the audience already trusts, gives way to "let's celebrate" when his missing wife is reported on the news, and to "hospital psycho ward" when he is cornered in the climax. The casting joke is that Herrmann's voice is the voice of the room; the Stayton tragedy is that the room is hollow.
Grant Stayton III is funny because Herrmann plays him impeccably
Roger Ebert's review of Overboard singled out Herrmann's performance:
"Edward Herrmann is the husband, who turns into one of those self-centered creeps you meet at gatherings of the rich and famous, and who can't believe his luck when his wife disappears." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1987)
The performance works because Herrmann does not play Grant as a villain. He plays him as a perfectly groomed cost analyst — every word calibrated, every gesture telegraphed — and lets the audience do the work of seeing the cost analysis as the villainy. The "let's celebrate" line at b10 is delivered as a small private joke between Grant and himself; the "what has love got to do with marriage" speech in the climax is delivered with the patience of a man explaining the obvious to a slow audience.
Herrmann found his second great act on Gilmore Girls
After Overboard Herrmann worked steadily — The Lost Boys (1987, the patriarch vampire), Big Business (1988), Born Yesterday (1993), Reds, narration of dozens of History Channel specials — but his second defining role came in 2000 when he was cast as Richard Gilmore on Gilmore Girls. Across seven seasons (2000–07) and the 2016 Netflix revival miniseries, he played Lorelai's WASP father — the same patrician voice, now used for warmth and stubbornness rather than for cost analysis.
"Richard Gilmore is the role that introduced me to a generation that had never seen Eleanor and Franklin. It's a beautiful thing for an actor to get a second wind like that." — Edward Herrmann, Television Academy Foundation (2009)
Herrmann died in December 2014 of brain cancer at age seventy-one. The Netflix Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life revival (2016) is built around his absence — the entire plot turns on Richard Gilmore's death.
Selected filmography
| Year | Film/TV | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Eleanor and Franklin (TV) | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Emmy nom |
| 1977 | Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years | FDR | Emmy nom |
| 1980 | Reds | Max Eastman | Beatty epic |
| 1986 | The Lost Boys | Max | The vampire patriarch |
| 1987 | Overboard | Grant Stayton III | |
| 1993 | Born Yesterday | Senator Hedges | |
| 2000–07 | Gilmore Girls | Richard Gilmore | Seven seasons |
| 2003 | Intolerable Cruelty | Rex Rexroth | Coens |
| 2009 | I Love You, Beth Cooper | Mr. Cooper | |
| 2016 | Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life | Richard Gilmore | Posthumous, used in flashbacks |