Patti LuPone pays tribute to her brother Robert

Northport-born stage legend Patti LuPone remembered her brother, actor-dancer and theater founder Robert LuPone, in a touching tribute Wednesday, four days after his death at age 76 from pancreatic cancer.

"My brother Bobby was a dancer unparalleled," LuPone, 73, who this year won her third Tony Award, said in a statement to Newsday. "And it all started when he saw me in a dance recital wearing a hula skirt. I was 4, he was 7." In her 2010 memoir, LuPone recalled, "The way my family tells it, my brother Bobby saw me in a hula skirt, fell in love with the costume and followed me into dance."

LuPone in her statement went on to say, "A life-size picture of Bobby dancing in José Limón's modern ballet 'There Is a Time' hung in the photo gallery of The Juilliard School, where Bobby preceded me as a student in the dance division. A few years later, as a student in the theater division, I would walk by it proudly as well as in awe."

The Brooklyn-born, Northport-raised Robert LuPone, a twin with non-showbiz brother William, was a founder of Manhattan's MCC Theater. As an actor, his work included numerous roles in soap operas, such films as "Jesus Christ Superstar" (1973) and "The Doors" (1991), and much TV, including playing Dr. Bruce Cusamano on "The Sopranos." He appeared on the Broadway stage from the 1960s to the 2000s — receiving a Tony nomination for "A Chorus Line" (1976) — and as MCC co-artistic director with Bernard Telsey, helped mount several Broadway shows.

"Bob was a force, an advocate, complex in the richest ways, overflowing with a youthful enthusiasm, and deeply wise as he looked in to our souls. He was our best friend. It is hard to believe that we will never sit down with him again and say 'Let’s talk,' " Telsey and artistic director William Cantler wrote in a tribute on the MCC website.

"Some of our fondest memories are of the MCC Marathon Weekend retreats we did in the early days, where Bob would lead a group of actors, directors and playwrights to a ramshackle retreat house on Long Island," the theater's long tribute added, "to read first drafts of new plays, eat, drink and talk all weekend, as his mother [Angela Louise, known as] Pat made food for us. For many of us, Bob created a sense of community that we had not yet found in New York, and we have treasured ever since."

In addition to his siblings Patti and William, he is survived by his wife, Virginia, and his son, Orlando.