Jack Gilford
Jack Gilford (
July 25,
1908 –
June 2,
1990) was an
American actor with a long and successful career on the
Broadway stage,
films and
television.
Gilford was born
Jacob Aaron Gellman on the lower East Side of Manhattan in
New York City, and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, then a teeming impoverished neighborhood, now an increasingly expensive Yuppie area. His parents were
Romanian-born Jewish immigrants Aaron and Sophie ("Susksa") Gellman. Jacob was the second of three sons, with an older brother Murray ("Moisha") and a younger brother Nathaniel ("Natie"). Aaron worked in the fur industry, and Sophie owned a restaurant, and was also a
bootlegger.
He 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. He 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.
In
1938, Gilford worked as the MC in the first downtown New York integratednightclub, "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 Mr. 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.
Mr. 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).
Mr. 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 hunting" 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,
The Diary of Anne Frank, and
No, No, Nanette.
He met actress and later producer Madeline Lee Gilford at political meetings in 1947. They were married and were partners for 40 years later creating a Jack Gilford Special 1981 for Canadian cable CBS. At this time after 40 years of night club performing Jack 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.
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?.
One of his last performances (if not the very last) was on the
ABC TV series
thirtysomething.
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.
He and Madeline 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.
In 1967 he was nominated for a
Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his stage performance in
Cabaret. Gilford was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1973 film,
Save the Tiger.
*
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)
*
Jack Gilford's Gravesite
