Ken Page, the beloved baritone who starred in Broadway’s “Cats” and “The Wiz” and who voiced Oogie Boogie in the film “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” died Monday. He was 70.
Talent agent Todd M. Eskin and Page’s close friend and producer Dorian Hannaway confirmed his death Tuesday to The Times. No details about the cause were immediately available.
Hannaway first announced Page’s death Monday, writing on Facebook that the Broadway veteran “passed onto the next show.” Another of Page’s agents, Lance Kirkland, told TMZ that Page died “very peacefully” Monday in his home in St. Louis. Kirkland did not immediately respond Tuesday to The Times’ requests for comment.
The actor enjoyed a decades-long career on the stage, famously playing the Cowardly Lion in “The Wiz” in the 1970s and feline leader Old Deuteronomy in the original Broadway production of “Cats.” But his deep voice might be most recognizable as that of the amorphous Boogeyman in Henry Selick and Tim Burton’s 1993 stop-motion classic “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” He often revisited the role of Oogie Boogie in person and by voice at Disneyland and Walt Disney World for Halloween and related holiday events.
Born in St. Louis on Jan. 20, 1954, Page launched his stage career in the chorus of the Muny, also known as the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre, before heading to New York. He made his Broadway debut as the Lion in the original production of “The Wiz” in 1975. In 1976, he starred in the first Broadway revival of “Guys and Dolls” with an all-Black cast, in which he played Nicely-Nicely. Two years later, he performed on the Great White Way in “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” the Tony Award-winning musical that paid tribute to the Harlem of the 1920s and ’30s, and returned to the role in a 1989 production. Page also directed an anniversary production of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” locally at the Cabrillo Music Theatre in Thousand Oaks.
He returned to Broadway for “Cats” in 1982 and in 1999 for “It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues.”
On screen, Page notably played nightclub owner Max Washington in the Oscar-winning “Dreamgirls” and had several guest parts in TV series such as “Sable,” “Family Matters,” “Charmed” and “Touched by an Angel,” as well as childrens’ programs on which he did voice work. He also voiced King Gator in Disney’s 1989 animated film “All Dogs Go to Heaven.”
In later years, Page developed and performed his cabaret-singer show, Page by Page, and wrote, directed and starred in various regional and touring productions.
