Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1531556
116 SAG-AFTRA SPECIAL ISSUE 2025 / sagaf tra.org and entertainer before the war, Wolfington could have played it safe and accepted an assignment with the non-combatant Special Division entertaining troops. But, as he relayed it, "I didn't want my parents to have to say, 'Oh yes, our son Iggie is overseas there, putting on shows for the fellas who go out and get shot at.'" He was discharged from the service in 1946, after receiving a battlefield commission to second lieutenant and earning a Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. In 1952, he won his first Broadway role in the comic hit Mrs. McThing, starring "First Lady of the American Theatre" Helen Hayes, which ran nearly a year. Actors' Equity took notice and bestowed its yearly Clarence Derwent Award upon him for the role. In later years, the Derwent Award would go to such stellar actors as George C. Scott, Gene Wilder, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Screen Actors Guild president William Daniels, 54th SAG Life Achievement Award recipient Morgan Freeman and the current president of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Courtney B. Vance. Wolfington was nominated for a Tony Award in 1958 for his supporting role of Marcellus Washburn in the 1957 hit Broadway show The Music Man — revived on Broadway in 1980 starring future SAG Life Achievement Award recipient Dick Van Dyke, with Wolfington as the mayor. Through the decades, Wolfington did it all: stock companies, Broadway, television, film, commercials — and union service. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 1984, "It was while playing in The Music Man that Wolfington became active in union [Actors' Equity] affairs. He took up the cause, as chorus member Peggy Mandau recalled, of 'the dank and dirty chorus dressing rooms.' He scored points against management's lawyer Gerald Schoenfeld, now chairman of the board of the Shubert Organization." He was elected to the Actors' Equity Council from 1959–2000 and as its fourth vice president from 1973–1976. In 1969, he found an additional way to serve; in May of that year, he opened the West Coast office of The Actors' Fund of America (now the Entertainment Community Fund) and ran it for 15 years. Wolfington at the 1973 Actors' Fund Blood Drive. Standing, from left, Wolfington, Bill Cort, Wolfington's wife Lynn Wood, Virginia Christine. Seated, from left, Ed Nelson, Marie Windsor, Margaret Lindsay and Gene Kelly. GENE LESTER RAY BENGSTON/SAG-AFTRA ARCHIVES