Jan Leighton was “the man of 3,000 faces” who entered Guinness World Records as the actor who played the most roles — 3,372 by the time of his death. He achieved this prolific list of credits by becoming America’s best-known impersonator of historical figures, a popularity gained by a talent for capturing the essence of the great and the good. He became the incarnation of choice for television companies, advertising agencies and corporate organisations for such well-known figures from US history as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and General Patton. In these guises he graced TV commercials, magazine and book covers, parties and gala openings. He would even give motivational speeches at corporate gatherings appearing as a swashbuckling George Washington or a brow-beating General Patton.
Leighton’s unncanny likenesses were attributed to his handsome, regular features, gave him versatility, and to lengthy make-up sessions. Facial contortions would do the rest, enabling him to segue easily from a pugnacious Napoleon Bonaparte to a brooding Godfather Don Corleone, a melancholic Charlie Chaplin to a chuckling F. D. Roosevelt. He once said that he loved the anononymity of “living in someone else’s face”.
His apartment in Manhattan was packed with more than 400 costumes that he had created himself, enabling him to arrive in character at photoshoots, TV studios and parties. He had a reputation as someone who would “go anywhere and do anyone” and in his tours of duty he would portray Fidel Castro lighting a cigar in an advertisement for Bic lighters, Albert Einstein selling cars in California, Lincoln opening a Minnesota bank, General Robert E. Lee cutting the ribbon at a department store in Arizona, Johann Sebastian Bach conducting with glass in hand for a beer commercial and a smiling Frankenstein eulogising a brand of cough mixture. In one commercial for a bank he appeared as Clark Gable, Groucho Marx and both Teddy and F. D. Roosevelt, all complaining about the charges levied by rival institutions.
His success at portraying the childlike enthusiasm of Einstein in TV commercials led him to be cast as the quantum theory physicist in the science fiction comedy film Zapped (1982). He also portrayed British figures who were popular in the US, including Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Winston Churchill, Henry VIII, Sir Walter Raleigh, Dickens, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Scrooge, Stan Laurel, Albus Dumbledore and a doughty Margaret Thatcher in a blue, white-spotted dress. Among other contemporary figures he did Pope John Paul II, Saddam Hussein, the president of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan and the political interviewer Larry King.
His best-loved and most booked-up incarnation was as George Washington and he even once appeared as the first US President on the platform of a conference to give a motivational pep talk to the surprised employees of the energy company Westinghouse. Other credits included magazine covers as Henry Kissinger and Leonardo da Vinci for New York, Uncle Sam for Time and as the Chinese philosopher Confucius for the cover of Gore Vidal’s book Creation. In 1985 he appeared in Guinness World Records as the most prolific actor, having at that point played 2,407 roles.
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He was born Milton Lichtman into a Jewish family in the Bronx in 1921. As a young man he served in the US Air Force in the Second World War and then studied music briefly in Mexico City before a period as a shoe salesman in El Paso.
He returned to New York in 1949 to pursue the acting career that he had cherished from childhood and changed his name to Jan Leighton because he thought he would stand a better chance of getting work without a Jewish-sounding name. TV work followed and an acclaimed performance on Broadway in the musical Wildcat (1960). When the acting roles dried up he reinvented himself and in the course of the next five decades built up his reputation as the “man who played everyone”. Leighton also co-wrote two books with his daughter Hallie, Rare Words and How to Master Their Meaning and Rare Words II.
Leighton was married four times, one marriage was annulled and three ended in divorce. He is survived by a daughter and a son.
Jan Leighton, actor, was born on December 27, 1921. He died on November 16, 2009, aged 87