Jon Cypher, who has taken his final curtain call at the age of 94, spent a lifetime proving that a man can look simultaneously noble and slightly bewildered while wearing either a crown or a plastic breastplate. Born in New York in 1932, Cypher first achieved something approaching immortality as Prince Charming opposite Julie Andrews in the 1957 live television Cinderella. Nearly 107 million Americans watched him dance and declare undying love in real time, an audience figure that today’s streaming services would kill for and then forget by Thursday. He sang opera in four languages and occasionally burst into song at parties, a habit that must have tested even the most devoted hostess.
Television later cast him as Chief Fletcher Daniels in Hill Street Blues, a role that required him to look perpetually exasperated by the human condition while wearing a suit that never quite fitted the chaos around him. For seven seasons he embodied the weary authority figure who knows the system is broken yet continues to file the paperwork. It was a performance of quiet, sardonic resignation that felt almost autobiographical.
In 1987 he donned the armour of Duncan / Man-At-Arms in the first live-action Masters of the Universe, standing beside Dolph Lundgren’s He-Man and somehow retaining his dignity amid the laser blasters, magic swords and cosmic nonsense. Few actors have managed to look both paternal and faintly embarrassed while barking orders about the power of Grayskull. Cypher pulled it off with the air of a man who had once sung Nessun Dorma and was now wondering how life had led him here.
Broadway claimed him for Man of La Mancha, Evita and other respectable engagements. He married Carol Rosin and remained with her for four decades, a longevity that puts most Hollywood marriages to shame. He requested a natural burial under trees, wrapped in biodegradable cloth – a final, understated exit that suggests he had at last found a role free of special effects. Cypher leaves behind a career that spanned fairy-tale princes, police chiefs and fantasy warriors, all delivered with the same dry intelligence. In an industry that rewards excess, he specialised in looking as if he knew better. Good journey, indeed.