Northern Calloway

Northern Calloway
Calloway as David on Sesame Street
Born	Northern James Calloway January 22, 1948 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	January 9, 1990(1990-01-09) (aged 41) Ossining, New York, U.S.
Cause of death	Cardiac arrest
Resting place	Ferncliff Cemetery
Other names	Northern James Calloway Northern Caloway Northern James Caloway
Occupation(s)	Actor, voice artist, comedian
Years active	1966-1990

Northern James Calloway (January 22, 1948 – January 9, 1990) was an American actor, voice artist, and comedian, best known for playing David on Sesame Street from 1971 through 1989, and he also voiced Muppet characters, including Same Sound Brown.

On Sesame Street, his character David was studying to be a lawyer, but when Mr. Hooper died, David took over Hooper's Store. He was a favorite among the many viewers of Sesame Street during his time on the show, but his later career was increasingly hampered by a serious decline in his mental health until he had to be dismissed from the show and later institutionalized.

On January 9, 1990, Calloway died of cardiac arrest, over a fortnight before his 42nd birthday.

Career

Calloway graduated from New York City's High School of Performing Arts in 1966, and he joined the Lincoln Center Repertory Company the same year. Stage roles he performed include:

• A Midsummer Night's Dream (Stratford Festival, 1968)
• The Three Musketeers (Stratford Festival, 1968)
• Tiger at the Gates (Broadway, 1968)
• The Me Nobody Knows (Broadway, 1970)
• Pippin (Leading Player, Her Majesty's Theatre, London, 1973)
• Pippin (Leading Player, Broadway, 1976)
• Whose Life Is It Anyway? (Broadway, 1980)

Calloway performed in 6 productions on Broadway from 1968 to 1980.

In 1971, he joined the cast of Sesame Street as David, a role he would hold for 18 years.

Legal trouble

On the morning of September 19, 1980, Calloway was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee. He beat marketing director of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center Mary Stagaman with an iron rod, giving her serious head and rib injuries. He then fled into the suburbs of Nashville. Along the way, he smashed a plate-glass window and storm door at one house and did extensive damage to the interior of another, destroying the family's collection of fine crystal, smashing a television set and breaking light bulbs with his bare hands. He also stole a backpack from a first grader and smashed a windshield with a rock before fleeing the scene where witnesses reported him wearing only a Superman T-shirt. He was arrested after hiding out in a couple's garage, screaming, "Help! I'm David from Sesame Street and they're trying to kill me!"

Mental health struggles and final years

Despite this incident, Calloway was allowed back on Sesame Street, with the condition that he took his prescribed lithium to treat his bipolar disorder.

During Calloway's final years on the show, his appearance significantly changed because in addition to lithium, he dabbled in cocaine, gained weight, sometimes missed work and rarely appeared in inserts as frequently as he had in the past, but rather he was largely seen in street scenes.

In his authorized history Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, author Michael Davis writes that Calloway's final years on the show were marked by periods of deteriorating health and ability punctuated by episodes of erratic behavior; during these years, he cites that Calloway reportedly bit music coordinator Danny Epstein during an on-set fight, and he also states Calloway once appeared unannounced at Alison Bartlett's high school and proposed to her. By 1987, with executive producer Dulcy Singer becoming increasingly doubtful about Calloway's future with the show, the writers gradually and quietly ended the relationship that the character of David had with Maria Figueroa (Sonia Manzano), which had been in the storyline for several years (Maria soon began a romance with Luis Rodriguez (Emilio Delgado), which resulted in their 1988 marriage). Eventually, in the spring of 1989, Calloway was dismissed from Sesame Street by Singer.

Davis also said that Calloway was a patient at the Stony Lodge psychiatric facility in Ossining, New York at the end of his life. However, Stony Lodge only treats children and not adults according to the Mental Health Association of New York City.

Death

According to Michael Davis, on January 9, 1990, Calloway died after going into cardiac arrest during a violent altercation with a staff physician. He was then taken to Phelps Memorial Hospital in North Tarrytown, where he was pronounced dead at the age of 41. A coroner's report listed Calloway's official cause of death as exhaustive psychosis, now more commonly called excited delirium syndrome (EDS).

He was survived by his mother, a brother, and a sister. Unlike Will Lee, no mention of his death was made on Sesame Street as at the time of the character's leaving, Calloway was still alive.

Calloway was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery.

Television

Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1971-1989	Sesame Street	David

External links

• Northern Calloway at IMDb
• Northern Calloway at the Internet Broadway Database
• His lawsuit against Marvel Comics @ FindLaw
• New York Times obituary
• Northern Calloway at Find a Grave

Northern Calloway on Muppet Wiki