Older and wiser

The rehearsals are running an hour late. When Brian Dennehy finally appears, he looks exhausted. He falls heavily into a chair. 'I'm old now,' he says. 'When I first did this, I was only 59.'

'This' is the critically lauded Goodman Theatre production of Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman, which finally arrives in London five years after it premiered in Chicago.

With the support of Miller, the production originally transferred to Broadway, where Dennehy won a Tony for his performance as Willy Loman, the fading salesman for whom life has always been the thing that happens just beyond his backyard.

Since then, Miller has died and Dennehy is now 64, about the same age Loman is in the play. 'I've lost weight, quit drinking, done all that stuff you have to do in your 60s, if you get that far,' he says. 'In fact, I'm fitter now than I was back then but it's still a tough one.'

Dennehy is not the first name that springs to mind as one of America's leading stage actors. Instead, he is known in this country for mainstream TV and trashy films.

His appearance - an awkward, cubist composite of square head, square shoulders, barrel chest and small legs - ensured he was invariably cast opposite the leading man either as a cop, villain or an alien.

Dennehy's guest appearances run the gamut of 1980s TV staples, from Dynasty to Cagney & Lacey, from M*A*S*H to Miami Vice. He was in the original Rambo film and is particularly remembered for Peter Greenaway's The Belly Of An Architect.

Yet, over the past 25 years, he has also carved out a theatre career, working with director Robert Falls at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, dedicated to tackling 'difficult' work away from Broadway. Given that Dennehy had never considered the theatre as a viable career, only as a creative indulgence, it's ironic that it has provided him with his greatest triumph.

'I was 40 before I realised that the theatre was what I really wanted to do instead of just making money and doing whatever,' he says cheerfully.

'In that respect, I'm very fortunate that I got to live this life doing this thing I love. But you always feel you should have done better. That's the thing about this play; it senses what it means to be an American.