After receiving a heart valve replacement from a cow, Darwin Apel used to joke that he could no longer eat beef: It simply wouldn’t be right.
That it was only a joke, and that he enjoyed cheeseburgers as much as the next guy, was not lost on his friends and family, who say the lifelong Chicago performer always faced adversity with humor and grace.
Mr. Apel was an artist of the old school, a twinkle-eyed singer, actor, musician and dancer who never met a job he didn’t like. He performed in the play “Inherit the Wind,” getting a kick out of wearing a sign reading “Down with Darwin” as part of his role. He edited the TV show “Wild Kingdom,” and was known around town for his singing performances with longtime partner Marvin Zelonky.
Mr. Apel, 83, of Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, died Oct. 8 at Midwest Care Hospice Center in Skokie of complications from prostate cancer. Apel was first diagnosed with the cancer in 1995; it metastasized in 2009 after a successful initial treatment. Apel beat leukemia in 2000 and underwent a successful mitral valve replacement in 2005, his family said.
Born on Chicago’s West Side on April 22, 1927, Mr. Apel was the youngest of three children. He joined the Navy and served in World War II before enrolling in college at Actors Company, a theater college in Chicago. Near graduation, he was called up by the Navy to serve in the Korean War as a hospital corpsman, his family said.
Though Mr. Apel’s career ranged from the New York stage to a national tour of “Inherit the Wind,” his proudest accomplishments were marriage and fatherhood. He often told his two children that life really started for him the day he met their mother.
He was working as a stage manager in Chicago 46 years ago when Carol Davies applied to work on the lighting crew. On one of her first days on the job, Mr. Apel informed those around him that he was going to dinner at a local restaurant. Carol, familiar with the owners, asked him to say hello for her. Taken aback, he invited her to join him.
Three weeks later, the two married. They celebrated their 46th anniversary last August.
“Their generation was really different, but they didn’t stay together just for the sake of staying together,” said his daughter, Melanie Apel. “I never saw them fight growing up.”
Mr. Apel offered a simple explanation for his pacifism: “Why do you want to be on the opposite side of the person who’s most important to you in the world?”
He and his wife taught their children the same tenderness, carting them along when the family needed a carpet or whenever someone had a doctor’s appointment
.
“I can’t sum up my father’s life in a poem, a speech or a journal entry, but I can say that because I was Darwin Abel’s daughter I’m one of the luckiest people in the world,” Melanie said.
As he raised his family, Mr. Apel spread himself across artistic endeavors as diverse as the city itself. He played the role of Doc in “West Side Story,” Al Lewis in “The Sunshine Boys,” Dr. Angoff in “Fathers and Other Strangers,” and Sammy the Angel in “Love in the Catskills.” He directed “Courage Untold” at the Avenue Theatre.
In the 1970s he was a film editor for
“
Wild Kingdom,” one of the country’s first televised nature shows.
He spent many years performing at coffee shops and parties with Zelonky in the folk duo Darwin and Marv. It was during one of his shows in Rogers Park that he encountered Michael O’Toole, who was hosting the open stage at No Exit Cafe.
The elderly duo sang and played guitar and left the young crowd smitten. They became regulars at the cafe and close friends with O’Toole.
Mr. Apel’s last role was alongside O’Toole, who hosted a Monday morning show for toddlers at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Each week they performed “Everybody Loves Saturday Night,” a Nigerian song about hurling off the yolk of colonialism, for the children.
He was a tireless performer. Friends recall him saying, even into his illness, “I’m retired until the phone rings.”
His final performance was “Everybody Loves Saturday Night” at O’Toole’s wedding this August. Unrehearsed, the pair burst into song for the attendees.
“He got up and we did a great big number, and he did a little bit of a dance and we stumbled on the floor and he kicked butt,” said O’Toole. “Two days later he went to the hospital.”
That wasn’t the only gift Apel left his younger friend, however.
“The best blessing I can give you … is that you are as happy as Carol and I have been,” O’Toole recalls him saying. “That was very, very touching.”
Apel is also survived by his daughter Mindy Apel and two grandsons.
Services have been held.
asahmed@tribune.com
