Chandler Cowles
American actor and theater producer (1917-1997)
Chandler Ruel Cowles (September 29, 1917 – February 1, 1997) was an American actor, producer, and co-producer in at least eleven New York theatrical productions from 1946 through 1960. He was also an Emmy-nominated writer and producer, for his work on the 1983 CBS documentary, I, Leonardo: A Journey of the Mind.
Early life
Cowles was born on September 29, 1917, in New Haven, Connecticut. one of two sons born to Elfrida (née Scofield) and Professor Walter Ruel Cowles, head of the University of Florida's music department. He attended Florida High School.
After attending Yale, Cowles served in the Navy, thus setting the stage for what, beginning in the years immediately following his emergence as a Broadway producer and referenced as recently as 2025, has arguably become the incident for which Cowles is best remembered, specifically, for being stationed aboard the U.S.S. California, as it was torpedoed and sunk on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor.
Career
Cowles was the executive producer of the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut in 1955. In February 1956 he was named general manager of N. B. C. Opera.
Cowles was co-producer with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. for Gian-Carlo Menotti's The Medium and The Telephone.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chandler Cowles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.