Actor Jan Leighton, Renowned for Playing Thousands of Public Figures, Dies
His list of roles included George Washington, Albert Einstein, Johann Sebastian Bach, Groucho Marx and seemingly countless others.
Jan Leighton, an actor whose calling card was an uncanny ability to inhabit historical figures in commercials, print advertisements and industrial films, died November 16, 2009, in Manhattan. He was 87.
According to news reports, the cause was complications after a stroke.
The 1998 Guinness Book of World Records listed Leighton as having played 3,395 roles since 1951.
He began his performing career on stage and in live television dramas. But when the jobs became scarce, he reinvented himself as a historical chameleon of sorts, essentially an impersonator for hire. According to the New York Times, “He researched the characters, created his own costumes — he had more than 400 of them in his Manhattan apartment when he died — and often did his own makeup.”
The Times went on to say: “In disguise, Leighton might pop up in almost any medium. On television, he lit a cigar as Fidel Castro in a commercial for Bic lighters and sold Toyotas as Albert Einstein for a Southern California car dealership. He promoted a Minnesota savings bank as Abraham Lincoln and an Arizona department store as Robert E. Lee. For one bank commercial he portrayed Clark Gable, Groucho Marx, Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all complaining about other banks that charged for checks. He pitched Cheerios as Alexander Hamilton, beer as Johann Sebastian Bach, early mobile phones as Dracula and cough syrup as the Frankenstein monster. He even played Whipple’s twin in a commercial for Charmin bathroom tissue.”
He also brought his protean expertise to feature films, print ads, book and magazine covers, even public appearances.
Other personages he portrayed included Albert Einstein, Gen. George Patton, Henry Kissinger, Leonardo da Vinci, Confucius, Vince Lombardi, Babe Ruth, Gandhi, Mozart, Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes. Ebenezer Scrooge, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Thomas Jefferson, Ernest Hemingway, Charlemagne, Darwin, Wyatt Earp, Walter Cronkite — even Margaret Thatcher.
Leighton was born in the Bronx as Milton Lichtman on December 27, 1921. After serving in the Air Force during World War II, he studied music briefly at a university in Mexico City. He was living in El Paso and working as a shoe salesman when he decided to return to New York to pursue his childhood love of acting.
In addition to his character work, Leighton was a hand model, and did voiceover work. He and his daughter, Hallie, collaborated on two books, Rare Words and How to Master Their Meanings and its sequel, Rare Words II.
Leighton was married four times. The first marriage was annulled and the others ended in divorce. He is survived by a daughter and a son.