Master of Ceremonies
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Edward Herrmann
Edward Herrmann, a Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor with a passion for all things automotive, serves as Master of Ceremonies for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Ed has filled this role more than admirably for the past nine years.
Ed has filled a multitude of roles over the course of an impressive career that spans stage, screen, and television.
A graduate of Bucknell University and a Fulbright scholar who studied drama at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Ed made his way to New York in 1970 and soon debuted on stage in the acclaimed off-Broadway play The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. He debuted on Broadway in 1972’s Moonchildren. And in 1976, he won a Tony award for his performance opposite Lynn Redgrave in Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Ed was nominated for another Tony for playing Mike Connor opposite Blythe Danner’s Tracy Lord in the 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story. A recipient of the rare Theatre Guild Medal and an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence in Performance, Ed has also appeared in Plenty and Love Letters on Broadway and in numerous other plays around the country and overseas.
Ed debuted on the big screen in 1971 as a policeman in the Sophia Loren film Lady Liberty, and he went on to appear in such classics as The Paper Chase, The Great Gatsby, The Great Waldo Pepper, Reds, A Little Sex, Annie, Mrs. Soffel, The Purple Rose of Cairo, The Man with One Red Shoe, Compromising Positions, The Lost Boys, Overboard, Big Business, Born Yesterday, Richie Rich, Nixon, Miss Congeniality, The Cat’s Meow, The Emperor’s Club, and Intolerable Cruelty. His most recent works include Relative Strangers and I Think I Love My Wife, and he has a starring role in the forthcoming film The Skeptic.
Ed is also well known to television viewers. In 1999, Ed received an Emmy for his recurring guest role as Anderson Pearson on The Practice, and he has received additional Emmy nominations for roles as Father Joseph McCabe on St. Elsewhere, as Alger Hiss in the television movie Concealed Enemies, and as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years. Current viewers will recognize Ed as the oldest intern on Grey's Anatomy. He previously played Richard Gilmore on The Gilmore Girls, Harrison Beecher on Oz, and he has made notable guest appearances on episodes of M*A*S*H, Law & Order, and Wings. Ed has also won several Audie awards for audio book recordings.
Of course, those of us in the automotive world know and love Ed as host and narrator of the television series The Ultimate Auto and some not-to-be forgotten Dodge commercials, and as a keen participant and officiant at auto events near and far.
Thank you, Ed, for your generous contribution to this event, to our charities, and to the whole of the collector car hobby.