Bradford E. Sullivan

To the Sullivan Family...my name is Susan Grossman Swift. My husband and I live in New York City. Brad and I were very close friends, for 35 years. The last time I spoke to him was probably around Easter of 2008. I new he wasn't feeling well, but I didn't know how serious the cancer was becoming.

Please know that I adored Brad. When I met him, I was 23 and he was 43. But, we went to the same church and became fast friends. When he was in the show, WORKING, by Studds Turkel,...

Dear Sullivan family,
I am sorry for your loss. God bless him and his family.

My uncle Brad was always an inspiration to me, and I was always proud to tell my friends about him and his work. Not just because he was an actor but because he was such a good one. He always made me laugh, and I will always remember his smiling face and his familiar voice which always seemed to have a chuckle bubbling just below the surface, waiting to be unleashed. His stories were legendary, and every converstaion with Brad was memorable. But I think the most telling thing about Uncle Brad...

I got to know Brad when his family moved to Cape Cod from the Chicago area in the late 1940s. I, having grown up in Massachusetts,had a very distinct Boston accent. We would make fun of each other about how the other sounded. Two words that becme a running joke were "Dodge" & "Buick". I had not seen Brad in about 15 years (this was 10 years ago), and we immediately picked up on our funny talking routine. Brad was a good hockey player and skater and was so good in the movie "Slap Shot" with...

1/16/09
We were out of the country and only learned recently about Brad. As a neighbor he was one of the most delightful human beings to deal with. Where I especially treasured Brad was his omnivorous reading of history . After more than 40 years of being an historian I was asked more telling questions in a week than in a semester of a class. When he would start with an aw"shucks" approach to ask you a question, I knew that I'd need my thinking cap on as well as my tap dancing...

I will miss my Uncle Brad a lot, and I will fondly remember how much he loved to eat, laugh at life, smoke his stinky cigars, spend time memorizing lines for a play he was in, telling stories from his journeys and people he met along the way, and his deep love for his friends and family. I will miss that face most of all with all the looks he gave and his distintive voice I could hear from the other room when something he was in came on the t.v. I'm sorry I was not there to wish you a...

I found out yesterday, 1/15/08, that Brad had passed. We met four years ago at the dining hall of my college. We shared so many wonderful years sharing meals and telling stories. We even shared the same birthday!

I still can't put into words the impact you've had on my life.

Brad, my diploma is for you... And I promise to get a bulldog named Martha!!

Brad Sullivan was one of the most real and down to earth people I have ever met. He had none of New York's neurosis nor Hollywood's sense of entitlement. Onscreen, he had a gritty persona which could exude volumes with economy of effort. I first met him in the buffet-style cafeteria at Columbia’s Morningside campus, where he was a regular, and invited him for a sit-down interview over at the J-school, where I was a student. The interview took place in the Knight-Bagehot room, and we were...

Brad was my uncle. We enjoyed Brad tremendously. He was funny and kind, and always thankful for my parents cooking! I never knew anyone else who enjoyed food as much as Brad. When he came over for dinner, we would cook twice as much as usual (family of SIX), in order to make sure there was enough. He would entertain us little ones with displays of pull ups or one-armed push ups. Brad was a very unassuming actor- not self promoting, not even in the family. You had to ask him what he was...