George Segal

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This article is about the actor. For the sculptor and painter, see George Segal (artist).
George Segal
in Lost Command (1966)
Born
George Segal, Jr.

(1934-02-13) February 13, 1934 (age 90)
Great Neck, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)Actor, musician
Years active1960–present
Spouse(s)Marion Segal Freed (1956-1981) (divorced; 2 children)
Linda Rogoff (1983-1996; her death)
Sonia Schultz Greenbaum (1996-present)

George Segal (born February 13, 1924) is an American film, stage, and television actor.

Early life

George Segal, Jr. was born to a Jewish family[1] in 1934 Great Neck, Long Island, New York, the son of Fannie Blanche (née Bodkin) and George Segal, Sr.[2][3][4] He was educated at George School, a private Quaker preparatory boarding school near Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He also attended Haverford College.[5] He graduated in 1955 from Columbia University.

Career

Segal has played both drama and comedy, although he is more often seen in the latter. Originally a stage actor and musician, Segal appeared in several minor films in the early 1960s in addition to the well-known 1962 movie The Longest Day. He was signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1961, making his film debut in The Young Doctors and appearing in The Naked City produced for television by Columbia's Screen Gems.[6]

He started attracting roles in 1965 as an egocentric painter in Ship of Fools, as a P.O.W. in King Rat in a role originally meant for Frank Sinatra, and as an Algerian paratrooper captured at Dien Bien Phu, who leaves the French army to become a leader of the FLN in Lost Command. He was loaned to Warner Bros for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (as Nick, for which he was nominated for an Oscar), later appearing as a British secret service agent in The Quiller Memorandum, a Cagneyesque gangster in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, perplexed police detective Mo Brummel in No Way to Treat a Lady, a bookworm in The Owl and the Pussycat, a war-weary platoon commander in The Bridge at Remagen, a man laying waste to his marriage in Loving, and a hairdresser turned junkie in Born to Win. In 1967, Segal released his debut LP titled The Yama Yama Man; the title track is a ragtime version of "The Yama Yama Man" (1908) with horns and banjos. Segal apparently released the album due to his popularity playing banjo on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson".[7]

Segal starred with Ruth Gordon in Carl Reiner's 1970 dark comedy Where's Poppa? He played a burglar in the 1972 comedy The Hot Rock with Robert Redford, a comically unfaithful husband in A Touch of Class and a midlife crisis victim in Blume in Love. He co-starred with Jane Fonda as suburbanites-turned-bank-robbers in Fun with Dick and Jane, and starred as a faux gourmet in Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?

Segal was relatively inactive in the 1980s, but bounced back as the sleazy father of Kirstie Alley's baby in Look Who's Talking, and in the 1993 sequel Look Who's Talking Now. He played a left-wing comedy writer in For the Boys (1991). His first starring role in many years came opposite JoBeth Williams in the 1992 comedy Me, Myself & I.

He also starred in the NBC television sitcom Just Shoot Me! (1997–2003) as Jack Gallo, the eccentric publisher of a New York fashion magazine.

Segal is an accomplished banjo player; he played with a dixieland jazz band while in college at Columbia that had several different names. When he was the one who booked a gig, he would bill the group as "Bruno Lynch and his Imperial Jazzband".

The group, which later settled on the name Red Onion Jazz Band, later played at his first wedding.[5] In 1974 he played in A Touch of Ragtime, an album with his band, the Imperial Jazzband (which, other than its name, may or may not have had any relation to his college band). During the 1970s/80s, Segal made frequent television appearances with the "Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band", whose members included actor Conrad Janis on trombone. Segal's banjo skills were referenced in The Simpsons episode, A Fish Called Selma, while on a date with Troy McClure Selma says "I once went on a date with a famous actor and had a wonderful time" to which Troy replies "Really...who was it, George Segal? I hear he plays the banjo." In Martin Scorsese's 1985 black comedy After Hours, Cheech and Chong play art thieves who steal a valuable sculpture by the artist George Segal, whom Cheech helpfully explains is "that dude who plays the banjo on The Tonight Show."

Segal portrayed the elderly musician Tony Delgatto in 2012. Most recently, he played the character Murray Berenson in the television series Entourage.

Currently, he stars in the new TV Land sitcom, Retired at 35.[8]

Works

Filmography

Discography

  • The Yama Yama Man (1967)

References

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/98/George-Segal.html
  3. ^ Klemesrud, Judy (January 10, 1971). "He's the Great Schlemiel; He's the Great Schlemiel". The New York Times.
  4. ^ Vincent, Sally (July 7, 2001). "Return to the first act". The Guardian. London.
  5. ^ a b Segal, George. I've Got A Secret, April 11, 1966.
  6. ^ Google profile
  7. ^ Clifford Terry (April 02, 1993). "Banjo Pickin' With George Segal". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 10, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ "Second TV Land Sitcom 'Retired at 35' Greenlit". Tvland.com. April 20, 2010. Retrieved April 20, 2010.

External links

Template:Oscars hosts 1961-1980

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