Lester Rawlins

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Lester Rawlins
Lester Rawlins in The Defenders, 1961
Born	(1924-09-24)September 24, 1924 Sharon, Pennsylvania
Died	March 22, 1988(1988-03-22) (aged 63)
Alma mater	Carnegie Mellon College of Drama
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1958–1985

Lester Rawlins (September 24, 1924 – March 22, 1988) was an American actor of stage, film and television.

Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania,^[1] Rawlins graduated from the Carnegie Mellon College of Drama in 1950 with a BFA.^[2]

Stage

Rawlins appeared in off-Broadway productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Winterset, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Nightride, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.^[1]

His Broadway credits included A Man for All Seasons and Da, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. Rawlins also won Obie Awards for his performance in the 1964 off-Broadway production of the play The Old Glory by the poet Robert Lowell^[3] and for his performances in off-Broadway productions of Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow and Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.^[4][5]

Screen

Rawlins' feature film appearances include Diary of a Mad Housewife and They Might Be Giants. On television, Rawlins had recurring roles on The Defenders, Kojak, The Secret Storm, and Ryan's Hope. He was a regular on the CBS soap opera, The Edge of Night for several years, where he played the role of wealthy Orin Hillyer. Rawlins' final screen role was on The Equalizer in the 1985 episode "Reign of Terror" portraying Doctor Timms, who is retiring from his practice, being too tired of local gang activity.^[6]

He also could be heard on television and radio commercials, and was most notably the voice-over for the Dunkin' Donuts television and radio advertising campaign created by the New York advertising agency Ally & Gargano.

Rawlins died of cardiac arrest in New York City in 1988.^{[citation needed]}

This list related to film, television, or video is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (February 2026)

• Lester Rawlins at the Internet Broadway Database
• Lester Rawlins at IMDb
• Lester Rawlins at the Lucille Lortel Archives
• New York Times obituary, March 29, 1988