Born.
He was born James Lancaster in Toronto, Ontario, where, as a boy, he won singing contests at school, allowing him to perform with Toronto's Opera Festival Association..
The cause of death was cancer, friends said.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Mr. Lamberts, 63, had battled prostate cancer, throat cancer and complications.
Mr. Lamberts was a major star in Canadian theatre who also worked south of the border in regional theatre, on Broadway and in TV ("Law & Order" and "Remember WENN," among other appearances).
His work as Cyrano de Bergerac at the Shaw Festival in Ontario led to him being awarded the Order of Canada in the 1980s.
Shaw's former artistic director, Christopher Newton, told Playbill.com Mr.
Lamberts was "one of the great comedians, one of the best of actors.
Biography.He helped to put the Shaw Festival on the map when he played Cyrano de Bergerac in the early '80s."
In the United States, he played the antsy, neurotic butler-timepiece, Cogsworth, in the Houston world premiere of the stage version of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and moved to Broadway with it.
He is heard on the Broadway cast album. He was also the mute