Known for:	The Wizard of Oz, Sing Your Worries Away, Flying High
Birth name:	Irving Lahrheim
Birthday:	13 August 1895, New York, New York, USA

Best known as the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz. Interred at Union Field Cemetery, Flushing, Queens, New York, USA. Bert Lahr's son, John Lahr, is now a drama critic with The New Yorker. Won Broadway's 1964 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for "Foxy." He also had a Tony nomination the previous year (1963) as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "The Beauty Part." He began seeing his future second wife Mildred in the early 1930s while his first wife was institutionalized. Mildred left him in March 1936 and married another man because he would not divorce his first wife. Mildred left her first husband by the end of 1936 and went back to Lahr, who obtained a divorce from his first wife a year later. Even though he divorced his first wife, he still loved her and divorced her only because her severe mental state made it impossible for her to function in a marriage. When she died, he did not speak a word for three days. His first wife, Mercedes, was mentally ill and lived in an asylum beginning in 1930. His son Herbert Lahr was born in 1929. His son John was born July 12, 1941. His daughter Jane was born September 2, 1943. Judy Garland heard of Lahr's death as she was about to go on stage in Las Vegas. At her performance that night, she dedicated "Over the Rainbow" to the memory of Lahr, or, as she referred to him on that occasion, "my beloved Cowardly Lion." Appeared in a total of 18 Broadway shows from 1927 through 1964.

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