Many thanks to Kent Mullikin '64 for this remembrance and the numerous 'Soons who wrote in with kind words
Charles Lee Layne '64, known to fellow Nassoons as Chuck, died on February 11, 2020, age 77. He came to Princeton from Issaquah, Washington, and joined the group as a 2nd Tenor in his sophomore year. His smooth voice and seamless transition to falsetto made him an expressive soloist on "The Four Winds and the Seven Seas," included on the 1963 LP. He also sang the solo on "Deep River" very beautifully and also supplied the riffs to "East of the Sun" on the 1965 ‘Soon record. During our senior year I got interested in tight-harmony quartet singing and dragooned Chuck, Don Schuman, and Lee Judy to learn a few charts hastily written down, including "I Wish You Love," "Ma'm'selle," and "Liza." We never did them in concert, but "Liza" found its way onto the 1965 record, where Chuck, singing lead nails a high C in the ending.
After graduation Chuck and I both had teaching fellowships at the International College in Beirut, where we sang in the school's glee club and also got drafted for a play and a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe in which Chuck took a lead part (Strephon). I do not know whether he had done any acting in high school, but he took to the stage very naturally, and I was not surprised to learn that after he returned to the U.S. he enrolled in the actors' training program and earned a BFA at the University of Washington. He embarked on his career as an actor under the stage name Charles Lanyer and became a member of the prestigious American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. After moving to Los Angeles, he appeared in television shows, including Hill Street Blues, Dallas, and NYPD Blue, and films, including The Stepfather and Die Hard 2. Returning to his first love, the stage, he appeared at the South Coast Repertory Theater, Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, and the American Conservatory Theater. He especially loved Shakespeare, and he received more than a dozen awards for his stage performances. He is survived by his wife Sara, a sister and brother, and many nieces and nephews. His friends remember him as a thoughtful, sensitive, intelligent man.
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