Andrew Duncan, original Second City actor, dies

Andrew Duncan, a pioneering Second City actor who was in the Chicago company’s first revue in 1959, has died, the theater announced Monday.

His age and cause of death were not revealed.

After his work in “Excelsior & Other Outcries,” in an ensemble that included Barbara Harris and Severn Darden, Duncan went on to perform in several other Second City shows (including one on Broadway) and have a busy career in TV and the movies in the 1960s and ’70s.

Before the launch of Second City, Duncan was part of the Chicago precursor companies Compass Players and Playwrights Theatre Club, appearing onstage with such future stars as Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Shelley Berman and Harvey Korman.

“Andrew Duncan was the quintessential straight man and interviewer at both The Compass and Second City,” colleague Sheldon Patinkin wrote in his book “The Second City: Backstage at the World’s Greatest Comedy Theater.”

He put his straight-man skills to work in one of Second City’s most revered scenes, “Football Comes to the University of Chicago,” playing an amiable coach trying to make gridiron stars out of a group of pointy-headed academics at the Hyde Park campus.

Duncan’s film credits included the hits “Love Story” (1970), “Slapshot” (1977) and “An Unmarried Woman” (1978).