Interplayers co-founder Bob Welch dies at 81
Robert A. “Bob” Welch, Spokane TV pioneer and co-founder of the Interplayers Ensemble, died Saturday at age 81 at the Rockwood South Retirement Community.
His health quickly declined after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just before Thanksgiving, according to his son, Christopher T. Welch.
During the 1950s, most people knew Bob Welch as “Bob Andrews,” one of Spokane’s first TV celebrities. Then, through the medium of live theater, he became one of the most influential people in Spokane’s cultural history, along with his wife, Joan Welch, who survives him.
Welch was born on Oct. 28, 1925, in Walla Walla. He moved to Spokane and attended Lewis and Clark High School. He served in the Marines from 1943 to 1945.
After the war he moved to New York City and attended the New School for Social Research, also known as the Dramatic Workshop, the famous acting school that produced such future stars as Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau and Rod Steiger. He appeared on stage in New York and even in an early TV show titled “Treasury Men of Action.”
He met Joan at the New School, and they were married in 1948. They came to Spokane in 1954 on a vacation to visit Bob’s parents, and ended up staying when Bob was offered a job at KXLY-4 in the new medium of television.
Welch was hired as an announcer, using the on-air name Bob Andrews, and soon became the host of a number of live shows, including one called “Antics With Andrews.”
“I’d sing, tell jokes, interview people,” said Welch in a 2000 interview. “We’d pull anybody off the street to interview them. … Anything we could think of to fill an hour.”
He was one of the creators and the original host of the talent show “Starlit Stairway,” which became arguably the most famous local show in Spokane’s TV history.
“When TV arrived here, it happened so quickly that anyone who worked on TV was an automatic celebrity,” said Welch in 2000. “It got to the point where I had to send Joan to the concession stand at the movies, because I didn’t want to hear people say, ‘There he is.’ “
He quit TV about 1959 and returned to his first love, live theater. He and Joan became the two-person drama department at Fort Wright College. They stayed there for 18 years until the college closed and they hatched the idea of creating a professional regional theater in Spokane, an idea that reached fruition as the Interplayers Ensemble.
He and Joan ran Interplayers from its founding in 1981 until their retirement in 2001. During those 20 years, they produced dozens of professional productions, with an emphasis on thought-provoking, literate scripts by masters such as Shakespeare, Moliere and Shaw as well as newer playwrights Wendy Wasserstein and Tom Stoppard.
They never staged a musical, yet they turned Interplayers into a popular success with thousands of subscribers. The Welches directed and acted in many productions, as well as running the business side of the theater.
Michael Weaver, who worked under the Welches for years at Interplayers and is now the co-founder of the Actors Repertory Theatre, said that Spokane was incredibly fortunate to have an artist of Welch’s caliber.
“Bob studied with Lee Strasberg and appeared on Broadway with Dame Judith Anderson,” said Weaver. “To bring that kind of expertise to Spokane, and to direct those kinds of shows in Spokane – it was world-class entertainment, as good as you’d find anywhere in the world.”
Welch will also be remembered for his many brilliant performances as an actor, including the two-person play “The Gin Game,” which he and Joan performed in 1983 and again in 1998.
Welch is survived by two children, Robin Welch Greer and Christopher T. Welch.
A memorial service will be held 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, 3520 E. 18th Ave. A gathering will follow at 12:30 p.m. at the Rockwood Community Center, 2105 S. Forest Estates Drive, at Rockwood South Retirement Community. All friends are welcome.