Dean Malissa, as George Washington,
inspects his farm.

Courtesy of Dean Malissa
8 DECEMBER 16, 2021
THE GOOD LIFE
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



Dean Malissa
Wanted to
Be An Actor.

He Ended Up
as George
Washington JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
G eorge Washington’s legacy is quite
literally the United States of America.

So when Daniel Shippey became
the nation’s foremost Washington imper-
sonator at Mount Vernon, the first
president’s Virginia estate-turned histori-
cal attraction, Shippey often heard that he
had big boots to fill.

Except those Mount Vernon work-
ers and Washington fans weren’t talking
about the Continental Army general.

They were talking about Dean Malissa,
the Upper Moreland resident and Jewish
actor who portrayed Washington before
Shippey. “He set a very high bar,” Shippey said.

From 2004 until the outbreak of
COVID-19, Malissa served as the fore-
most Washington impersonator in the
nation that Washington fathered. Malissa
did about 150 events a year, with half
coming at Mount Vernon, almost a
three-hour drive from his then-home in
Philadelphia. He donned colonial-era jackets,
collars, cuffs and lapels; he stood with
Washington’s formal and upright posture
and spoke in his equally formal diction; he
articulated the first president’s personal
credo of “deeds, not words.”
Malissa embodied the world-historic
character before both Mount Vernon
visitors and crowds across the country.

In a stadium in Arizona, he performed
for tens of thousands. At the National
Archives Museum in Washington, D.C.

one July 4, he read the Declaration of
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THE GOOD LIFE
DECEMBER 16, 2021
9