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Tall, bookish-looking American actor Charles Kimbrough attended Indiana University and Yale before his first off-Broadway appearances in All for Love and Struts and Frets. Beginning in 1966, Kimbrough and then-wife Mary Jane were principal players of the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, a troupe which included such celebrities-to-be as Michael Tucker and Judith Light. Kimbrough briefly abandoned Milwaukee for Broadway in 1969, garnering excellent revues for his appearance in the 1970 Stephen Sondheim musical Company. He returned to the Milwaukee Rep in the early '70s; so popular were Charles and his wife that, when they left Milwaukee for good in 1972, an original musical was specially commissioned for the Kimbrough's final rep appearance. Remaining active in plays, commercials, and films (The Front [1976], The Seduction of Joe Tynan [1977]), Kimbrough established himself as a reliable if not overly famous presence. Charles Kimbrough finally became a fullfledged celebrity in 1988 with his weekly appearances as newsmagazine anchorman Jim Dial on the Candice Bergen sitcom Murphy Brown.