Robert Barron, 95

Robert Barron, a drummer who in the 1940s toured with big bands and played with the likes of Teddy Wilson, Leslie Gart, and Lani McIntyre, died on July 12 at home in Amagansett. He was 95 and had been in hospice care.

Mr. Barron was born in Brooklyn on Jan. 24, 1921, and grew up there, marrying his high school sweetheart, Sylvia Katz, on July 13, 1941. They settled in Manhattan.

When not touring, Mr. Barron worked in jazz clubs on 52nd Street and major New York City hotels including the Waldorf-Astoria.

Drawn to acting in his 30s, he earned scholarships to study with William Hickey, Stella Adler, and Herbert Berghof. That led to appearances in many Off Broadway plays and a short-lived Broadway production, “Mystic Connecticut” with Samuel Levine. While continuing to support himself as a musician, he also acted in regional theaters such as the Charles Playhouse in Boston, where he played Berringer in “Rhinocerous.” It was his proudest role, his daughter said. Boston critics lauded his performance as the finest they had ever seen, he told her, and compared him to Charlie Chaplin.

He worked with Mike Nichols in Philadelphia and in East Hampton appeared at Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater with the Phoenix Players. Among his roles there was the lead in Arnold Weinstein’s “The Party.”

Mr. Barron and his wife, Sylvia, an artist, began summering in Amagansett in the mid-1960s with their daughter, Shawn. They eventually built a house with a view of the ocean on Bluff Road and moved there full time about 15 years ago. He enjoyed playing tennis at the courts on nearby Atlantic Avenue, but “found the most enjoyment looking at the ocean from his deck,” his daughter wrote. He would drive to Atlantic Avenue Beach to read The New York Times. In later years he took an active and knowledgeable part in the Amagansett Library’s biweekly Shake­speare discussion group.

He wrote his own obituary, and in it said that he would like people to remember that “he had a good time.”

Mr. Barron is survived by his daughter, Shawn Herlihy of Amagansett, and a grandson. His wife died in October.

A service was held on July 15 at Green River Cemetery in Springs, where he was buried.