Montevallo loses memorable voice

Published 3:37 pm Friday, November 16, 2018

By NANCY WILSTACH / Community Columnist

Perhaps you knew him as Don Quixote or as Thomas Jefferson or as Frank Sinatra . . .

Bennie Middaugh died last week at 84 of Alzheimer’s. It seems ironic that the man whose sonorous baritone voice gave so many people so many wonderful memories ended his days with his own memory obliterated by such a cruel disease.

To me Bennie also was the father of one of my daughter’s best friends, the husband of my grandson’s piano teacher and an integral part of 30 years of New Year’s Day gatherings.

Bennie Middaugh as Thomas Jefferson in American Village’s early years. (Contributed)

His widow, Laurie, wouldn’t park him in a nursing home these last years. She somehow managed to maintain her professional position on the University of Montevallo music faculty, plus teaching aspiring young piano students, while she also took care of the husband who no longer was totally sure who she was, utilizing a battery of attendants to keep him at home in his dimly familiar surroundings whenever she was working.

“I feel grief,” she said a few days after Bennie’s death, “but I also have a sense of relief.”

“Man from LaMancha” was definitely his signature role, said daughter Katherine Middaugh. “He played Don Quixote in four different productions.”

Besides teaching voice at UM, Bennie performed all around the Birmingham area since he arrived in 1963. “My Fair Lady,” “Showboat,” “Flower Drum Song” and “Annie” were some of the shows, and he was on stage at Summerfest/Red Mountain Theatre, Town & Gown, the now defunct “Brighthope” at Brierfield, Theatre of Tuscaloosa and various summer stock shows. In the 1960s Bennie sang at Carnegie Hall.

Often he performed right here at Montevallo, bringing Broadway to a town with only a handful of traffic lights.

“An Evening with Frank Sinatra” featured Bennie’s baritone at its best. He loved the Sinatra repertoire, and the love was woven into the music.

Although he mentored many young performers, the most famous was Rebecca Luker, who wound up on Broadway in “Phantom of the Opera” not long after she graduated from UM.

For Montevallo Elementary School music teacher Julia Hixson, memories of Bennie began in 1995 when “Bennie was my first director when I ventured into musical theatre in Birmingham. He cast me as ‘Lady Thiang’ in the 1995 Birmingham Summerfest production of ‘The King & I.’  He was so kind and patient and always took time to encourage the actors. I gained so much knowledge and experience that summer! It also gave me the courage and confidence to continue auditioning for local shows. I have made life-long friends through the wonderful world of theatre, Bennie being one of the dearest.”

Students from across the years poured their feelings into Facebook posts:

—Heather Andrews: “One of my fondest memories of Dr. Middaugh was taking his directing for musical theatre class . . . You’ll always be the very model of a modern Major General, and thinking of your rendition of ‘The Impossible Dream’ always makes me tear up.”

—Kristi Tingle Higginbotham: “Our theater community lost one of its most brilliant stars, Dr. Ben Middaugh. The Virginia Samford Theatre plans to celebrate Bennie with its production of Man of La Mancha this coming April!”

—Patrick Evans: “The first time I ever heard him, I was a 16-year-old sophomore in high school at the Montevallo Choral Festival, and he sang the baritone solos in the Faure Requiem. There was no sound more divine than his Libera Me, or his Five Mystical Songs, or his Dichterliebe, or his Henry Higgins . . . or his signature role – the Man of LaMancha . . . flawless technique, achingly beautiful tone, heft and float, impeccable diction and true dramatic genius.”