David Wayne, Broadway, Film Actor

HOLLYWOOD - David Wayne, whose Broadway, TV and film portrayals ran a gamut of characters ranging from a scientist trying to save the world to an Asian bent on bringing happiness to GIs in a far-off land, is dead.

A daughter, Melinda, said yesterday her father had died Thursday after a long struggle with lung cancer. He was 81.

Winner of two Tony awards and nominated for an Emmy, the actor fit comfortably into lead and character roles in films and television, be they musicals, comedies or dramas.

Born Wayne David McKeekan in Traverse City, Mich., he majored in business administration at Western Michigan College while also appearing in several college plays.

In 1936 Mr. Wayne joined a Shakespearean repertory company in Cleveland, where Sam Wanamaker and Arthur Kennedy also made their theatrical beginnings.

In 1947, he landed the role of the leprechaun in the Irish fantasy "Finian's Rainbow," and its magical musical moments and satire brought him his first Tony.

Next he introduced the world to everyone's favorite military innocent, Frank Thurlowe Pulver, the precocious ensign in "Mr. Roberts" in 1948. It was as Pulver that he first appeared opposite Henry Fonda with a crewcut, a style that remained his signature for many years.

While Mr. Wayne's first Tony took him more than two decades, his second came more quickly.

He won again in 1954, this time as best actor in "The Teahouse of the August Moon," where he portrayed Sakini, the clever Okinawan bent on melding cultures. He co-starred with John Forsythe, and the play won that year's Pulitzer Prize for drama plus the Drama Critics' Circle award.

After his success in "Mister Roberts," he was invited to Hollywood for parts in two highly touted films, "Portrait of Jennie" and "Adam's Rib," both in 1949.

His motion-picture career proved as varied a blend as his stage work, from a small-town barber who ages 56 years in the 1951 film "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie," to impresario Sol Hurok in "Tonight We Sing" (1953).

He was Duke in a 1974 remake of "Huckleberry Finn," Dr. Dutton trying to find a cure for the "Andromedia Strain" in 1974 and the landlord and insensitive husband, respectively, in "How to Marry a Millionaire" and "The Three Faces of Eve."

Among his other better-known pictures were "The Last Angry Man," "The Front Page," "The Apple Dumpling Gang" and "The Survivalist."

Mr. Wayne starred in the TV series "Pearson Norby" in 1955. He was Inspector Richard Queen in "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" in 1975-76 and Willard "Digger" Barnes on "Dallas" in 1978.

In 1957 Mr. Wayne was nominated for an Emmy for an appearance in the "Heartbeat" episode of "Suspicion," a suspense anthology.

And devotees of the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder could occasionally see Mr. Wayne as the Mad Hatter, a "Batman" nemesis in 1966-67.

In 1960 he and Edward G. Robinson had starred in what many critics felt was a TV landmark, "The Devil and Daniel Webster."

His wife of 52 years, onetime actress Jane Gordon, died in 1993.

In addition to Melinda, he is survived by another daughter, Susan Kearney, and two grandchildren. The family asks contributions in his name to AIDS Project Los Angeles.