Opera
Singer turned
Actor who made his mark in stage and screen versions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the ForumLeon Greene, who has died of
cancer aged 89, was a Sadler’s Wells opera singer who took his bass baritone voice to the West End stage to play the self-important Roman soldier Miles Gloriosus in the original
London production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical
comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Following its hugely popular two-year run at the Shaftesbury theatre (1963-65), Greene reprised his role in the 1966 film version, directed by Richard Lester, alongside an international cast led by two stars of the initial Broadway show, Zero Mostel (as the lazy slave Pseudolus, played by Frankie Howerd in the West End) and Jack Gilford, plus Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton and Michael Crawford.