MARK MEDOFF

(18 March 1940 - 23 April 2019)

The American writer, producer, director and actor Mark Medoff, who has died aged 79 from complications with cancer, made his name as a dramatist producing some thirty plays. He also worked on many films, but his greatest success was his play Children of a Lesser God, about the relationship between a deaf woman and her speech therapist. The play was an enormous hit and the subsequent film version was also a success. Medoff insisted that the leading female role be played by a deaf actress. In the US it was premiered by Phyllis Frelich, in London it was Elizabeth Quinn and for the film (with William Hurt) the role went to Marlee Matlin, who won an Oscar, the first time an Academy Award had been presented to a deaf actor. Medoff had written plays since the mid-1960s and he was also a teacher in New Mexico where he founded the American Southwest Theatre Company. He did the screenplay for own play When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? with Marjoe Gortner, Candy Clark and Peter Firth. He also scripted Good Guys Wear Black for Chuck Norris and later worked on Off Beat with Judge Reinhold, Clara’s Heart with Whoopi Goldberg, City of Joy with Patrick Swayze, Homage with Blythe Danner, plus Santa Fe, The Heart Outright and, at the time of his death, Walking With Herb, a serious comedy about a guy with personal problems, an abiding theme of Medoff’s writing. He also produced and directed some of his own screenplays and at times appeared in them as an actor. Mark Medoff was first married to Vicki Eisler. He married his second wife, the actress and costume supervisor Stephanie Thorne in 1972 and they have three daughters, Jessica, Debra and Rachel.

MICHAEL DARVELL