St. Louis native Ken Page, who made it big on Broadway, dies

Actor Ken Page showed his Show-Me State colleagues that a Midwesterner really can make the big time in New York.

On Monday, after a theater career of more than 40 years, the St. Louis native died at the age of 70. 

Page, a big man with a bigger smile and a booming voice, was born in St. Louis in January 1954. After high school, he graduated from Fontbonne College before heading to New York City. In the 1970s, he debuted on Broadway as Nicely-Nicely Johnson in a revival of “Guys and Dolls” and as a replacement for the Lion in “The Wiz.” 

But he was better known for his role as another feline: Old Deuteronomy in the original 1982 Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats.”

Page played other powerful roles, including the character of God in two productions. He won a Drama Desk award for his portrayal of Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin.’”

Page’s career also took him to the movies. He’s known as the voice of Oogie Boogie in Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and for his role of Murray in Harvey Fierstein’s 1988 “Torch Song Trilogy.”

The film was one of the first to validate a gay man’s desire for romantic love and to raise a child. In a 2013 interview about the movie’s 25th anniversary with the St. Louis publication Vital Voice, Page said it has a time-tested message for young LGBT people:

“I would hope that they would take away from it that their pride starts from within them, not outside of them. It isn’t something that’s bestowed upon you like a magic wand — it’s something that you have to have within yourself. And that means you have to have it with co-workers, you have to have it with your family — whoever. That’s you. And either they can accept you or they can’t but you have to know who you are.”

Home again

Page moved back to St. Louis in 2010. He told the St. Louis Beacon he was thrilled to be home.

“I’m just enjoying exploring it because I’ve been away a long time and just coming in the summer. There’s a wonderful restaurant scene. Every time I go out I’m like, ‘Wow this is a great place, and this is a great place.’”

In 2013, Page became the voice of the Muny, greeting guests through a voiceover before the start of a show. In the outdoor theater’s 2006 production of Elton John and Tim Rice’s “Aida,” he played Aida’s father, Amonasro. Page reprised the role on the Muny stage in 2016. He donned the Old Deuteronomy suit again in 2010 in the Muny’s presentation of “Cats.”

“Each season, he and I would talk about what shows and what he wanted to do and this was his artistic home,” Muny Executive Producer and Artistic Director Mike Isaacson said.

Isaacson joined the Muny in 2011. He said Page had been a close friend.

“We shared this communal belief, this collective desire, what the theater could be and what it is, and what the Muny means and how it could be,” Isaacson said. “There were times when you could lose your way, and I could always count on Ken to get me back on track.”

Page appeared in more than 45 shows on the Muny stage. But one of Isaacson’s greatest memories of him was his performance as Doc in the 2013 and 2023 productions of “West Side Story.” The character is the conscience of the musical and was a role Page insisted on playing.

Rob Ruggiero directed the musical and gave Page the last moment of the show with the line, “Why do you kids always act like there’s a war going on?” It was a performance that stayed with Isaacson, one that captured Page’s essence on a stage that meant so much to him.

“There was Ken Page standing alone on the stage, looking at his theater, his audience, his community, wiping tears and asking why,” Isaacson said. “And each night, that moment was absolutely genuine and devastating.”

He played Aladdin in the iconic St. Louis institution’s 2012 production of “Aladdin” and appeared in its staging of “Dreamgirls,” starring Jennifer Holliday, that same year.

Page went solo in the spotlight with a cabaret show he debuted in New York and brought to St. Louis in 2014, called “Old, New, Borrowed and Blue.” Of the show, he told a St. Louis Public Radio reporter:

“The level of intimacy with cabaret is the key. To the audience … I say come to relax and have a good time and be in my living room with me, that’s how I think of it.”

Page took turns at the writing desk and in the director’s chair. In 2013, he directed his musical “Cafe Chanson” for Upstream Theater at the Kranzberg Arts Center. Two years later, he directed another of his plays, “Sublime Intimacy,” also on the Kranzberg stage. “Sublime” is a play that nudges us to ask questions about our love lives. He told St. Louis Public Radio during St. Louis on the Air that the idea sprang from a conversation with a friend.

“Well, he said to me, I think there’s a level that some relationships reach that’s extremely intimate. It is like a sublime intimacy. … Most of my sublime intimacy relationships have been with friends. Or, people who were romantic involvements that became friends rather than the other way around.”

Page appeared on the show with Henry Palkes, the play’s pianist and composer, and talked about the elegance of the collaboration.

“What I’ve loved about the process from all ends, the dance, the choreography, the music and the text, is that it has been a completely creative evolution on every level. … We’ve really worked together to make it all tell the best story of each story, if you will. That to me, in my experience as a director, writer or an actor, is the joy of it, getting to work with other creative people and bring one thing into focus in the end.”

In 2019, Page received a lifetime achievement award from the St. Louis Arts and Education Council. In an interview with St. Louis on the Air on the honor, Page reflected on his long career, his beginnings and some of his first memories, performing a puppet show at 5 years old and eventually turning his passion into a career.

“I’ve been very fortunate,” Page said. “Now that I’m at this particular juncture, I can afford, if you will, to look back and really tally, and I think I’ve done OK.”

Watch Page transform into Deuteronomy for the Broadway production of “Cats.”

Follow Nancy Fowler on Twitter: @NancyFowlerSTL