Charles Kimbrough played men who would not bend, most memorably the anchorman Jim Dial on Murphy Brown, and made their stiffness the joke without making them fools. It was a narrow line, and he held it for ten seasons.
Fi1m perspective
Jim Dial sits at the anchor desk with his back very straight, the veteran anchorman of Murphy Brown. Candice Bergen's Murphy is difficult, forceful and unapologetic; Kimbrough's method is not to compete with her. His comedy is understated, the straight man's part, and the programme needs it so that Murphy's forcefulness does not wear the comedy out.
He did not start out that way. Kimbrough spent the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre before New York, and on stage he was a Sondheim man: Harry in the original 1970 Company, Jules in Sunday in the Park with George in 1984. He said of those years, "When I first came to New York I’d played these sweaty, physical guys who bounded all over the stage." The stillness came later and it stuck. From about thirty he was cast as the stodgy one, the pompous one, the man in the good suit who disapproves, and Murphy Brown in 1988 turned that into ten seasons of work, with a return for the revival in 2018.
The programme is the place to see him. Our review found that Faith Ford, Joe Regalbuto and Kimbrough gave it an ensemble substantial enough to stand beside Bergen, and that matters more than it sounds. Murphy is written to win every exchange, and without people around her who carry their own weight the programme would be a monologue with furniture. Kimbrough's Jim is the one she cannot ruffle. We were surprised by how often we laughed at a man doing almost nothing, and it was the almost nothing that did it: the pause held a beat longer than seemed polite, the chin never dropping.
Animation used the same voice to less purpose. In The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) he is Victor, the senior of the three gargoyles who keep Quasimodo company, alongside Mary Wickes and Jason Alexander, and he went back for the sequel. The part is not his fault. Trousdale and Wise made a properly dark Disney film, and the gargoyles turn up to check we are still having fun; we sighed each time, and their music-hall number is the low point of Menken's songs there. Kimbrough does what is asked, which is to be the fussy, dignified one, but the film has no use for dignity in those scenes.
After the series he did more voice work, took The Wedding Planner (2001) and guest parts, and the typecasting kept him from livelier roles. Watch Murphy Brown, and watch how much of the comedy is happening in a man who barely moves.
Biography
Charles Kimbrough was an American actor. He was born on 23 May 1936 in St Paul, Minnesota, and died on 11 January 2023 in Culver City, California.
Kimbrough had an extensive stage career, receiving a Tony Award nomination for his performance in the original 1970 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company. He became widely known for playing the news anchor Jim Dial on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown (1988–1998), a role he reprised in the 2018 revival; the performance earned him an Emmy Award nomination. He also voiced Victor the gargoyle in Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and its 2002 sequel. In 2002 he married actress Beth Howland.
