Nehemiah Persoff Dies: Prolific Actor Of 'Yentl', 'The Twilight Zone', 'Gunsmoke', Many More Was 102
Source: Deadline
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Nehemiah Persoff Dies: Prolific Actor Of 'Yentl', 'The Twilight Zone', 'Gunsmoke' & Many More Was 102
By Greg Evans
Associate Editor/Broadway Critic
@GregEvans5
https://twitter.com/GregEvans5
April 6, 2022 8:30am
Nehemiah Persoff, an actor who went from the uncredited role of a cab driver in On The Waterfront's iconic "coulda been a contender" scene to become one of the busiest character actors in television and film for five decades, died Tuesday at a rehabilitation facility in San Luis Obispo, California. He was 102. ... Persoff had retired from acting in recent decades after suffering a stroke and other health issues. His death was reported to Deadline by a family friend.
Born in Jerusalem, Palestine, Persoff and his family moved to the United States in 1929, and after serving in the U.S. Army in World War II he relocated to New York to pursue a career in theater. He became a member of the famed Actors Studio in the late 1940s, studying with Elia Kazan, who would pay him a reported $75 to play the silent cab driver in Waterfront.
Subsequent decades brought roles on scores of television series, making Persoff one of the most recognizable character actors of the 1960s, '70s, '80s and into the '90s. A selection of titles includes The Untouchables, Naked City, Rawhide, Burke's Law, The Big Valley, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, Land of the Giants, The Magical World of Disney, Mod Squad, Love, American Style, Gunsmoke, Marcus Welby, M.D., Baretta, The Six Million Dollar Man, McCloud, Little House on the Prairie, TV miniseries The Word, Hawaii Five-0, Barney Miller, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Chicago Hope. He played Leonid Brezhnev in the 1983 miniseries Sadat, and in 2003, he came out of retirement to appear uncredited as a rabbi, along with Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak, in a scene of the HBO miniseries adaptation of Kushner's Angels in America.
On the film side, Persoff had roles in Humphrey Bogart's final film The Harder They Fall (1956), and in following decades appeared in The Wild Party, Some Like It Hot, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Voyage of the Damned and Twins. He voiced Papa Mousekewitz in 1986's An American Tail, and in perhaps his most indelible film role played Reb Mendel, the father of Barbra Streisand's title character of Yentl ( and the subject of the film's best known song "Papa, Can You Hear Me" ). ... Persoff was preceded in death by wife Thia, who died last year of cancer. He is survived by children Daniel, Jeff, Perry and Dahlia, several grandchildren and nieces and nephews.
Read more: https://deadline.com/2022/04/nehemiah-persoff-dead-obituary-actor-yentl-gunsmoke-was-102-1234995573/
He appeared with Jack Cassidy in a great episode of "Columbo."
Here he is in "Some Like It Hot."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?viy0zNDfVZOQ
gangsterbirthday
47,679 views Aug 29, 2009
rouge gorge
61 subscribers
that's a scene from billy wilder's "some like it hot".
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poetcomic1
3 years ago (edited)
That is Nehemiah Persoff who was famous in Hollywood parties for doing his hilarious imitation of Mussolini. That's exactly what Billy Wilder wanted him to do. It is great.
= new reply since forum marked as read
He was a U boat captain in the end of his TZ episode.
Nehemiah Persoff, 'The Twilight Zone' ('Judgment Night' episode) (1959)
Everett Collection
which also featured a young James Franciscus as his second in command.
RIP and goodbye, Mr. Persoff.
