David Cryer '58 and Son Jon Factor Into 'TV Q & A' Column

July 18, 2007

July 18, 2007, Greencastle, Ind. - The name of David Cryer, actor and 1958 DePauw University graduate, is raised in David Inman's "TV Q & A" column in the Boston Herald. A reader asks Inman, "On a Bonanza rerun, I noticed an actor who portrayed a telegraph operator, bartender and hotel keeper. I was absolutely sure he was Jon Cryer of Two and a Half Men, but my wife says no way because of the age. She's almost convinced me -- but not quite. This man looked so much like Jon Cryer, could it have been his father?"

Inman responds, "Jon Cryer, of course, was born in 1965, and Bonanza went off the air in 1973, which means Cryer would have played the Old West's only 8-year-old bartender." The columnist notes that the actor's father, David Cryer, "worked exclusively in TV shows on the East Coast such as soap operas and never appeared on an episode of Bonanza."

Jon Cryer's mother is Gretchen Cryer, a 1957 graduate of DePauw (the two are seen in the photo at right).

David Cryer's résumé includes films such as Escape from Alcatraz and American Gigolo. Since 1992, he has been performing in the musical Phantom of the Opera -- first as a member of the national touring company and more recently as a member of the Broadway cast. On April 4, 2007, Phantom became the first Broadway show to reach 8,000 performances.

Video clips of David Cryer from a 1996 television news profile can be accessed via this previous story.

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