On this day in 1990, Lawrenceburg native Michael Jeter won the Tony Award for best featured performer for his role as the timid bookkeeper Otto Kringelein in the Broadway musical ‘Grand Hotel.’

Jeter, a 1970 graduate of Lawrence County High School, performed in school plays but truly fell in love with theater during his time at Memphis State University. After graduating MSU in 1974 with a degree in fine arts, Jeter earned his Actors Equity union card and spent the next decade playing minor roles on television shows. He moved to New York in 1977.

But then, as he told the Memphis ‘Commercial Appeal’ in 1993, “the acting jobs dried up.” In the mid-1980s, Jeter, frustrated, depressed, and unable to find acting work, learned to type and got a job as a litigation secretary at a law firm while contemplating going to embalming school.

His luck changed in 1988. Jeter was called by the casting director of ‘Designing Women’ to play a homeless man named Calvin Klein. That role was followed soon after by calls to perform on a television show called ‘Hothouse,’ and roles in two off-Broadway plays.

Jeter was working at night for the same law firm when he got the call to audition for ‘Grand Hotel.’ In his Tony acceptance speech, Jeter acknowledged that his path to success had been difficult, but that he served as living proof that “dreams come true.”

Following his Tony, Jeter secured the role of Herman Stiles, a frustrated assistant coach on the television show ‘Evening Shade,’ a role which earned him an Emmy and four additional Emmy nominations.

Jeter’s career included roles in major films such as ‘The Green Mile,’ ‘Polar Express,’ ‘Open Range,’ ‘Waterworld,’ ‘Patch Adams,’ ‘Air Bud,’ ‘Jurassic Park 3,’ and many more. He also played the ‘Sesame Street’ character Mr. Noodle.

Michael Jeter passed away in 2003 at the age of 50.

To view Mr. Jeter’s full Tony acceptance speech, follow this link: