Obituary: C. Lindsay Workman (1924-2012)

The actor C. Lindsay Workman (often billed without the “C.”) died on April 24 at the age of 88.  Aptly named, Workman was a busy bit player in the sixties and seventies, most often playing authority figures: doctors, judges, clerks, clergymen.  He had a recurring part on Here Come the Brides (above), as the town minister.  A lot of other series used him often, but in a different role each time: Perry Mason, Bonanza, Bewitched, The Donna Reed Show, and eventually doing voices on the cartoon Garfield.

Eminently recognizable but rather colorless, Workman wasn’t an attention-getter like, say, the fussy James Milhollin or the hyperactive Jonathan Hole.  He was a good man for delivering exposition without attracting too much attention from the stars.

Workman also looked quite a bit older than he actually was – he’s only 44 in the image above.  In my line of work, I generally know who’s alive and who isn’t, but I have to admit that Workman caught me by surprise.  If I’d known he was still around, I would’ve tried to plumb his memory.

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Other folks whose recent deaths did not accrue enough comment: the veteran character actors George Murdock and Walter Mathews (both of whom also looked and played older than their actual ages), and the television writers Stephen Lord and Henry Denker.  Somehow I’d circled around all four of them for interviews, but there’s never enough time.