Remembering Michael Jeter: A Tony Award Season Tradition

by Chris Peterson

Every Tony Awards season brings out the usual traditions: the standing ovations, the underdog wins, the standing in the shower at midnight replays of acceptance speeches from years past. For a lot of us, it’s a season of celebration. But for me, it also carries a quieter moment, one that hits like clockwork every June: thinking about Michael Jeter.

We lost him in 2003. And every Tony season since has been a reminder of the kind of artist and human being we don’t get nearly enough of in this world.

Michael Jeter was, in every sense, the definition of a character actor. He was twitchy and wiry and impossible to pigeonhole. He wasn’t the leading man type. But he didn’t need to be. He had something better: a soul that filled every inch of the stage. Whether you knew him as the tragic Otto in Grand Hotel, the heart on his sleeve Mr. Noodle from Sesame Street, or Eduard Delacroix in The Green Mile, you didn’t forget him. He made sure of that.

He won the Tony in 1990 for Grand Hotel, and if you’ve never seen his acceptance speech, stop what you’re doing and go watch it below. He walks up there with this look of disbelief and gratitude, choking back tears as he thanks the people who stood by him. And he talks openly about his battle with addiction. About almost losing everything. About how this win didn’t just represent a trophy, it represented survival. It’s one of the most human, gut wrenching, and honest moments the Tonys have ever given us.

And it wasn’t a throwaway line. Michael Jeter’s story was survival.

He struggled with alcohol and drug addiction in the early part of his career, even as his star began to rise. He disappeared for a while. Directors stopped calling. Friends grew worried. But Jeter did the work. He got sober. He rebuilt. He returned to the stage and the screen with something deeper. Something raw and vulnerable that poured into every role he touched.

You could see it in his eyes. Every time he performed, there was a kind of quiet thunder behind it. A man who had been to the edge and come back, not just to tell the story, but to live it fully. That’s what made his performances so unforgettable. They weren’t just skillful. They were truthful.

Offstage, the stories of his kindness are just as vivid. Fellow actors have described him as a joy to work with, always the first to offer encouragement, to lift others up.

He was also proudly out and HIV positive at a time when that wasn’t easy. He didn’t shy away from it. He didn’t hide. He lived with quiet defiance and with tremendous heart. His longtime partner, Sean Blue, was with him until the very end. When Jeter passed away from complications after an epileptic seizure, the Broadway community mourned not just a performer, but someone who represented survival, empathy, and authenticity at its most beautiful.

I sometimes wonder what roles he would’ve played had he lived longer. What shows would’ve been written for him. What young actors might’ve grown up seeing themselves in his brilliance. We lost him far too soon.

But every time I watch that Tony clip or his haunting final moments in The Green Mile, I’m reminded: some artists burn too bright to last forever. But the warmth they leave behind, that stays.

The Tony Awards are about excellence in theatre. But they’re also about resilience. About risk. About the people who give more than applause can repay. And if that’s the bar, Michael Jeter set it. Gone too soon. But oh, how lucky we were to see him shine.