Joe Carvajal and Ed Penn first met in 1961, when Penn, a Federal government official
and a local D.C. amateur actor at the time, was the narrator in one of Carvajal's
made-for-TV government documentary films. The two then worked together as actors
in stage productions presented by the Mount Vernon Players, in D.C. After winning the
"Best Actor" award in the D.C. Annual One-Act Play Festival, Ed Penn moved to New
York City and became a full-time professional actor. He went on to have a very
successful career as a character actor, appearing in numerous television shows (such as
"Seinfeld" and "Murder She Wrote.") He also appeared in many TV and print-media
commercials and was featured in the motion picture "I Never Sang For My Father,"
which starred Daniel J. Travanti. Ed also did a lot of stage work, with such great
performers as Martha Raye, Janet Blair and Ricardo Montalban, among others. He has
acted in shows at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in New York City theaters,
in Los Angeles and at various locales in Europe. Penn and Carvajal have kept in
constant touch over the years, via cards and letters. Carvajal has only a few photos of
his long-time friend, and no pictures at all from the stage shows they performed together
("The Crucible," by Arthur Miller and "The Glass Menagerie," by Tennessee Williams.)
Joe Carvajal and Ed Penn
in 2003
|
Some cast members poolside
at the show's hotel for the
Ricardo Montalban/Janet
Blair production of South
Pacific.
|
South Pacific director Gordon Brown, Jane
Brown, Nedra Carvajal and Ed Penn.
|
Ed in a TV sitcom (one of many
network television shows in which he
was featured -- Seinfeld, Murder She
Wrote, etc.)
|
