REMEMBERING TELL SCHREIBER

Tell Schreiber, 79, Bainbridge Island actor, woodworker and former teacher, died Monday, March 1, 2021, in Seattle Washington after a two month struggle with a virulent form of cancer. He and his partner of twenty three years, Osa Bogren, were about to begin a sightseeing road trip down to San Diego, to spend time with his daughter & granddaughters, before moving to Portugal when the restrictions of the Pandemic lifted. When a trip to the doctor for a nagging pain in his right hamstring revealed a rare soft tissue sarcoma that had already metastasized to his lungs, they rented an apartment near Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in Seattle and he began aggressive chemotherapy. He was overcome by the cancer and bravely faced his death at 3:50 pm, on March 1st.

Tell Carroll Schreiber III, was born August 2nd, 1941 in St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City to Pamela Dutton Prime and Tell Carroll Schreiber II. Tell was the third of six children and was beloved by each of his siblings. When Tell was 9, his family moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania where he attended Central Bucks High School, and he was both a star football player and wrestler, and valedictorian of his graduating class.

In 1959 he attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. In 1961 he took a leave of absence from Dartmouth and enlisted in the US Army, where he had the opportunity to enroll at the Monterey Language Institute. There he studied Russian, and subsequently served as an interpreter at a U.S. base in Germany, specializing in Russian submarine communications. Following his years in the military, he returned to Dartmouth, where he developed his love of acting and majored in Drama. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1966. Later, in 1987, Tell enrolled at York University in Toronto and earned a Master’s Degree in acting and directing.

Tell will be remembered as a celebrated actor, director, woodworker, and supporter of the arts in his adopted home of Bainbridge Island, WA where he has lived with his partner, Osa, for the last 23 years in a house designed by Jeb Thornburg that they lovingly built on his Taylor Avenue property in Eagledale, and where he fashioned cabinets, furniture and art as Astragal Design from his professional woodshop. Tell’s is a familiar face on the stage at Bainbridge Performing Arts, as well as Island Theatre in its various productions from staged readings to fully staged touring shows. He twice played an iconic attorney litigating a high-profile case— once as the famous prosecuting lawyer modeled after William Jennings Bryan in Inherit the Wind, and later as the defense attorney in the stage adaptation of Local author David Guterson’s novel Snow Falling on Cedars. He also directed shows for Island Theatre and served several years on its board of directors.

Tell is survived by his partner Osa Bogren, his son Liev Schreiber, his daughter Meara Demko, son Pablo Schreiber, his three living sisters, and the many step-children and grandchildren whose lives he enriched with his love and attention. He will be dearly missed by all of his near and far-flung family and friends.