Film & TV / Theatre & dance
Max Wright
1943–2019 · actor
ALF's harried father Willie Tanner, born in Detroit and raised in Southfield, where he starred in high school musicals; he returned to act at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre in 2007.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Englewood, New Jersey
aged 75- Birth name
- George Edward Wright
- Detroit years
- 1943–1961, 2007
- Field
- Film & TV, Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Max Wright was born George Edward Wright in Detroit in 1943 and moved to the suburb of Southfield as a child. At Southfield High School, from which he graduated in 1961, he was a pillar of the theater program and landed the leads in two musicals. He built a serious stage career first: in 1968 he was in the original production of The Great White Hope at Washington's Arena Stage, and he later earned a Tony nomination for Chekhov's Ivanov on Broadway (1998). Television made him famous. After regular roles in Buffalo Bill and AfterMASH, he played Willie Tanner, the patient suburban dad who hides a wisecracking alien in his house, on ALF (1986–1990). Later he appeared on Friends, Murphy Brown and Quantum Leap. In 2007 he came back to metro Detroit to act at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre in West Bloomfield. He died of lymphoma in 2019.
Highlights
- Willie Tanner in ALF (1986–1990)
- Tony nomination for Ivanov on Broadway (1998)
- Original cast of The Great White Hope at Arena Stage (1968)
- Southfield High School class of 1961
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · until 1961
Southfield High School (today Southfield High School for the Arts and Technology)
Wright was active in the theater program here and graduated in 1961.
Performed here · 2007
The Berman Center for the Performing Arts
Professional Equity company founded in 1989, performing at the Jewish Community Center's Aaron DeRoy Theatre; Wright acted here in 2007.