Jack Gilford

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Jack Gilford
Image:Jack Gilford.jpg Jack Gilford
Born	July 25 1908(1908-07-25) New York, New York, U.S.
Died	June 2 1990 (aged 81) New York, New York, U.S.

Jack Gilford (July 25, 1908 – June 2, 1990) was an American actor on Broadway, films and television.

1 Biography
2 Broadway stage appearances
3 Filmography
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Gilford was born Jacob Aaron Gellman on the lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His parents were Romanian-born Jewish immigrants Sophie ("Susksa") Jackness, who owned a restaurant and was also a bootlegger, and Aaron Gellman, a furrier.^[1] Gilford was the second of three sons, with an older brother Murray ("Moisha") and a younger brother Nathaniel ("Natie").

Gilford was discovered working in a pharmacy by his mentor Milton Berle. While working in amateur theater, he competed with other talented youngsters, including a young Jackie Gleason. He started doing imitations and impersonations. His first appearance on film was a short entitled Midnight Melodies where he did his imitations of George Jessel, Rudy Vallee and Harry Langdon. He developed some unique impressions that became his trademarks — most notably, one of "split pea soup coming to a furious boil" using only his face. Other unusual impressions he created were a fluorescent light going on in a dark room, John D. Rockefeller Sr. imitating Jimmy Durante, and impressions of animals.

[edit] Career

In 1938, Gilford worked as the MC in the first downtown New York integrated nightclub, "Cafe Society". He created original spoofs on movies — in one of them, he coined the now-common phrase "The butler did it". He was a unique blend of the earlier style of the Yiddish theater, Vaudeville and Burlesque and started the tradition of Monology such as later comedians Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen used.

One of Gilford's specialties was pantomime, and this talent was put to good use by director George Abbott when he cast Gilford as the silent King Sextimus in Once upon a Mattress (Off-Broadway, 1959). Gilford shared the stage with a young Carol Burnett in this production, and reprised his performance with her in two separate televised versions of the show, in 1964 and in 1972.

His talent for pantomime was also employed to a great extent in the ten years Gilford was the face of the Cracker Jack TV commercials. The most memorable of these commercials featured Gilford walking through the sleeping car of a train when he discovers two passengers passing a box of Cracker Jack back and forth between their sleeping compartments and decides to surreptitiously intercept.

Gilford won many awards. He was nominated for several Tony awards for best supporting actor as Hysterium in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1963), and for his role as Herr Schultz in Cabaret (1966). He was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor in (1972) for his role as Phil Green in Save the Tiger (his co-star Jack Lemmon won for Best Actor).

Gilford's career was derailed for a time. He believed deeply in social change in the United States, integration and Unions. He was quite active both socially and politically. He had to pay a price for this as many who were ruined by the 1950s political "witch hunt" of Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee along with the Hollywood blacklist. But he managed to become successful mostly through roles on the Broadway stage, such as Drink To Me Only, Romanoff and Juliet, and The Diary of Anne Frank.

Some of Gilford's most memorable work was done for series television, where he made numerous guest appearances. Some notable examples:

Get Smart (1969), playing Simon the Likeable
Soap (1979), recurring role as Saul, a 4000-year-old man abducted by aliens
Taxi, (1979, 1981), two appearances as "Joe Reiger", the cold, uncaring father to Judd Hirsch's sensitive and caring "Alex Reiger" character. In one of these episodes, Gilford reprised his old "pea soup coming to a furious boil" impression
The Golden Girls, (1988, 1990), playing "Max Weinstock"
Other series: The Defenders, All in the Family, The Duck Factory, Rhoda, Night Court, Car 54, Where Are You?.

In 1979 Jack Gilford won a Daytime Emmy award for his guest appearance on the children’s series Big Blue Marble.

Gilford and his wife, Madeline Lee, created a Jack Gilford Special in 1981 for Canadian cable CBS. At this time after forty years of night club performing, Gilford started to perform his one man shows in the 1980s. This included appearances at the Paramount Theater in Denver, as well as Town Hall NYC. He went on to became a highly recognizable and loved comedic, serious and character actor.

One of his last performances was on the ABC TV series thirtysomething.

[edit] Personal life

Gilford met actress (and later producer) Madeline Lee at political meetings in 1947. They were married and were partners for forty years. He and Lee raised three children: Lisa Gilford (from Madeline's previous marriage), now a producer; Joseph Edward Gilford, a screenwriter, playwright and director; and Sam Max Gilford, an artist and archivist.

At the age of 81, after a three-year battle with stomach cancer, he died peacefully in his Greenwich Village home in Manhattan in 1990.

[edit] Broadway stage appearances

Meet the People (1940–1941, musical revue)
They Should Have Stood in Bed (1942, play)
Alive and Kicking (1950, musical revue)
The Live Wire (1950, play)
The World of Sholem Aleichem (1953, play, Off-Broadway)
The Diary of Anne Frank (1955–1957, play)
Romanoff and Juliet (1957–1958, play)
Drink to Me Only (1958, play)
Look After Lulu (1959, play)
Once Upon a Mattress (1959, musical) — Gilford initially played the role of King Sextimus Off-Broadway. When the show moved to Broadway, the role was played by Will Lee instead. Gilford, though, reprised his Sextimus performance for two television productions of the musical.
The Tenth Man (1959–1961, play)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962–1964, musical)
Cabaret (1966–1968, musical)
Three Men on a Horse (1969–1970, play, revival)
No, No, Nanette (1971, revival, musical)
The Sunshine Boys (1973–1974, play, replacement for Jack Albertson)
Sly Fox (1976–1978, play)
The Supporting Cast (1981, play)
The World of Sholem Aleichem (1982, play, revival)

[edit] Filmography

Year	Film	Role
1944	Hey, Rookie	Specialty
1944	Reckless Age	Joey Bagle
1959	TV: The World of Sholem Aliechem	Bontshe Shveig
1963	TV: Cowboy and the Tiger	Tiger
1964	TV: Once Upon a Mattress	King Sextimus
1966	The Daydreamer	Papa Andersen
1966	Mister Buddwing	Mr. Schwartz
1966	A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum	Hysterium
1967	Enter Laughing	Mr. Foreman
1967	Who's Minding the Mint?	Avery Dugan
1967	The Incident	Sam Beckerman
1969	TV: Arsenic and Old Lace	Dr. Jonas Salk
1970	Catch-22	"Doc" Daneeka
1971	They Might Be Giants	Wilbur Peabody
1972	TV: Of Thee I Sing	Vice President Throttlebottom
1972	TV: Once Upon a Mattress	King Sextimus
1973	Save the Tiger	Phil Greene
1976	Tubby the Tuba	voice: The Herald
1976	Short: Max	Max
1976	Harry and Walter Go to New York	Mischa
1977	The Doonesbury Special	voice
1980	Cheaper to Keep Her	Stanley Bracken
1980	Wholly Moses	Tailor
1981	TV: Goldie and the Boxer Go to Hollywood	Wally
1981	Caveman	Gog
1983	Anna to the Infinite Power	Dr. Henry Jelliff
1983	TV: Happy	Bernie Nelson
1985	Cocoon	Bernard 'Bernie' Lefkowitz
1985	TV: Hostage Flight	Mr. Singer
1986	TV: Young Again	The Angel
1988	Arthur 2: On the Rocks	Mr. Butterworth
1988	Cocoon: The Return	Bernard 'Bernie' Lefkowitz