The Los Angeles City Council today declared Saturday as Norman Lloyd Day in Los Angeles to honor the entertainer on his 100th birthday.
“Norman Lloyd has had and continues to have an extraordinary career as a producer, director, writer and actor with a dazzling array of affiliations with some of the foremost giants of film television and theater, including Orson Welles …Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock,” said Councilman Paul Koretz, who presented a proclamation to Lloyd at today’s council meeting.
Koretz showed a scene from Hitchcock’s 1942 spy thriller “Saboteur,” in which Lloyd — playing a Nazi spy in his feature film debut — desperately tries to hold onto the side of a tall building.
“It was an extraordinary experience working for Hitch,” Lloyd recalled.
Time has shifted the public’s reception of the film, which has become one the more frequently shown Hitchcock movies, he said.
“I didn’t change my performance. It still remains the same, although I did admire that I had hair and looked much better,” he quipped. “But time goes on, and you get to be 100, and you get to be honored. I thank you all for your generosity.”
Lloyd’s best-known television role was as Dr. Daniel Auschlander on the 1982-86 NBC medical drama “St. Elsewhere.” His most recent small screen appearance came in a 2010 episode of the ABC comedy “Modern Family.”
Born Nov. 8, 1914, in Jersey City, the New Jersey native has also performed on Broadway and on the radio.
Lloyd made his Broadway debut in the 1927 melodrama “Crime,” in which he met his future wife, Peggy Craven. They were married for 75 years until her death in 2011 at the age of 98.
Lloyd was part of Welles’ famed Mercury Theatre acting troupe, appearing in its 1937-38 Broadway production of Julius Caesar. He also performed on Welles’ CBS radio series “The Mercury Theatre on the Air.”
loyd’s association with Hitchcock continued in the 1950s when he was an associate producer and director on the CBS suspense anthology “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”
Lloyd’s work as a producer brought him two Emmy nominations for the 1968-71 NBC drama “The Name of the Game” and the 1973 Public Broadcasting Service production of “Steambath.”
Outside of his work as an actor, producer and director, Lloyd has been a longtime tennis player and avid baseball fan.
He has wielded a tennis racket since he was 8 years old, playing against such Hollywood luminaries as Charlie Chaplin and Spencer Tracy.
Lloyd told ESPN sportscaster Keith Olbermann that the first game he attended was Game 1 of the 1928 World Series between the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals at Yankee Stadium.
“Babe Ruth slid into second base, ripped the seat of his pants,” Lloyd told Olbermann. “We howled. Normally the player runs to the bench for repairs. Not the Babe. Little man runs out to him with a sewing kit, patches him up right at second base. Tremendous. I was 13. I loved it.”
