Actor and director Sam Wanamaker died at his London home on Saturday as his long-held dream of rebuilding Shakespeare's Globe Theater finally neared reality. He was 74.
Wanamaker died after a five-year fight against cancer, his family said.Wanamaker, who was born in Chicago in 1919 and got his early stage training there, worked in Britain when he was blacklisted in the 1950s after the McCarthy hearings. He lived in Britain for most of his life.
In 1957 he created the New Shakespeare Cultural Center in Liverpool, northern England. Two years later he performed a highly praised Iago in "Othello" at Stratford-on-Avon.
Although he played a wide range of roles on stage and in films in the United States and Britain, Wanamaker became best known for his tireless quest for a living memorial to William Shakespeare in London.