#jon cypher

"As charming as a prince will ever be..." Farewell, Jon Cypher (1932 - 2026)

The Parallel Julieverse is saddened to learn of the recent passing of Jon Cypher at the age of 94. A versatile actor whose career encompassed Broadway, film and television, Cypher was known to generations of viewers as the politically calculating Chief Fletcher Daniels in Hill Street Blues, the blustering General Marcus Craig in Major Dad and the heroic Man-at-Arms in Masters of the Universe (1987). His distinguished stage career included appearances on Broadway in The Night of the Iguana, Man of La Mancha, 1776, Coco and Big.

Here in the Parallel Julieverse, however, Cypher will always be His Royal Highness Christopher Rupert Windemere Vladimir Karl Alexander François Reginald Lancelot Herman (Herman?!) Gregory James — the handsome young royal who found his princess in Julie Andrews in the original 1957 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s tele-musical Cinderella (Messing, 1957). A landmark television event watched by a record audience of more than 100 million, Cinderella marked Cypher’s professional television debut. As a relative unknown, he had to audition five times for Rodgers and Hammerstein and various CBS network executives — singing, as it happens, “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady — and beat out dozens of other applicants, many of them major Broadway and recording names, to secure the plum role (Ewald, 1957). Alongside his good looks and singing talent, Cypher’s height was an added factor in his favour. “If I’d been five foot four, with great talent, they wouldn’t have signed me,” he wryly commented. “I’m six foot two. Julie Andrews is a tall girl” (Scheuer, 1957, p. 8). Though Julie was undoubtedly the star of the production — and, inevitably, the primary focus of the show’s rapturous reviews — Cypher earned generally warm notices for his turn as the Prince. The New York World-Telegram and Sun wrote: “Jon Cypher, a tall handsome youth with a Barrymore profile and caressing manners, was an ideal Prince. And he sang very nicely in a light baritone with a tender lyric quality I found most endearing” (Van Horne, 1957, p. 13). The New York Journal-American proclaimed: “Jon Cypher, an unknown who won the role of Prince Charming, is a cypher no longer, fitting the role nicely in looks, song and even dance” (O’Brian, 1957, p. 14).

It was a propitious launch to what would become a long and varied career. So, vale, Prince Christopher. May you forever “dance and fly over mountain and meadow and glen…”

Sources:

Ewald, William. “Jon Cypher Has Cinderella Role in TV Musical.” Daily Courier, 20 February 1957, p. 7.

Messing, Harold. “The CBS Television Production of Cinderella.” MA thesis, Stanford University, August 1957.

O’Brian, Jack. “Jack O’Brian’s TV Views.” New York Journal-American, 1 April 1957, p. 14.

Scheuer, Steven H. “Cypher Is Cinderella’s Prince.” Herald Statesman, 16 March 1957, p. 8.

Van Horne, Harriet. “Television.” New York World-Telegram and Sun, 1 April 1957, p. 13.

He may have been most famous for Hill Street Blues, but to me he'll always be Prince Christoper in the original 1957 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.

Masters of the Universe (1987) The Cannon Group, Inc. Dir. Gary Goddard