Known for playing Sweeney Todd in the original cast of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and for portraying the patriarch Henry Reagan, NYPD Police Commissioner (retired), in the multigenerational television series Blue Bloods on CBS, Leonard Joseph Cariou (born September 30, 1939) is a Canadian actor and stage director.
Len Cariou parents: Meet George Marius Cariou, Molly Estelle Cariou
George Marius Cariou and Molly Estelle Cariou are Len Cariou’s parents. Breton was Cariou’s father, and Irish ancestry was his mother. In addition to acting and directing in the school plays while attending Miles Macdonell Collegiate for years 10 and 11, Cariou eventually enrolled at St. Paul’s College.
Cariou was a founding member of the Manitoba Theatre Centre and had his stage debut in 1959’s Damn Yankees at Rainbow Stage in Winnipeg.
He was given the opportunity to accept a scholarship to the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, but he had to turn it down since he was married, had a young child, and had financial obligations.
Instead, he spent two years honing his craft at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. He then came back in 1981 to direct the company in the roles of Prospero, Coriolanus, Brutus, and Petruchio.
