Brian Dennehy is a bear of a man who portrays Willy Loman perfectly in the 1999 production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Brian Dennehy was not an actor all of his life. He began his career as a football player for Columbia University, and also served a five-year stint as a marine during the Vietnam War. It was not until 1977 at the age of thirty-nine when he started his career with a small role in "Semi Tough".

Known to me better as Big Tom in the 1995 hit "Tommy Boy" he also has over forty more television and movie roles, including appearances in NBC's "Just Shoot Me" as actor David Spades' father and ABC's "Birdland", where TV Guide named him the best actor in television.

Brian Dennehy is considered to be a bear of a man who does not care much anymore for the so called "block buster" movies with their big computer generated special effects and "wage compression". Dennehy describes "wage compression" as, "an actor like Jim Carrey who totes off with twenty million and does not leave much in the budget for the other acting talent." (Watson) Feeling that everyone else was working for peanuts he gave up the silver screen route and decided to go back to

This love for television has then brought him into the lights of Broadway once again taking on roles in Brian Freils' "Translations" and Peter Brooke's' "The Cherry Orchard". Most recently Dennehy starred as the failing salesman Willy Loman in Robert Falls' fiftieth anniversary production of Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman. In this production critics consider him the best Willy Loman to date. Linda Winter says "The towering presence of actor Brian Dennehy returns to Broadway to portray Willy Loman, Arthur Millers' American everyman, in Robert Falls' production of Death of a Salesman a work of tremendous emotional impact, as relevant today as when it appeared fifty years ago."(Winter)

Watson, Neal. "High Life Of Brian Dennehy." Sun Entertainment,

writing and acting in television. By returning to writing and acting in television Dennehy feels that he is finally getting paid a considerable return for his acting services, saying "There was never any question as to whether or not I was a whore, it was just a matter of what the price was. And I'm proud to say that I am a very expensive whore, indeed. And hope to remain so.'' (Watson 19)

Winter, Linda. "Death of a Salesman." Newsday, 2000: n. pag. Online

Dennehy, Brian. "Live interview of Brian De

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