Tony Roberts, a Nonchalant Pal in Woody Allen’s Films, Dies at 85

Tony Roberts, the Easygoing Sidekick in Woody Allen Films, Dies at 85

Tony Roberts often portrayed similar characters in Woody Allen's films. In A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982), he played a jovial bachelor doctor from the turn of the 20th century, delivering lines like, “Marriage, for me, is the death of hope.” In Stardust Memories (1980), he appeared as a brash actor who brought a Playboy centerfold to a film festival.

In Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Roberts took on the role of a suave former business partner who eagerly donated sperm — clearly too charmed by the request to decline — resulting in fair-haired twin boys for an infertile couple (played by Allen and his then-real-life partner, Mia Farrow).

However, Roberts acknowledged the challenges of being so closely tied to Allen’s work. “I was always so vividly the guy Woody wrote that everybody in the business — casting agents, for instance — would think of me that way,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1997. “The persona I was for Woody is a hard thing to break out of.”