Charles Grodin iconic straight-man passes at 86
Emmy Award winner Charles Grodin has died at the age of 86 in his home in Wilton, Connecticut. His death from bone marrow cancer was confirmed by his son, actor Nicholas Grodin, at NPR.
Charles Grodin collected a resume claiming acting, screenwriting, producing, directing and television hosting credits during his decades-long career.
After making her debut on Broadway with Anthony Quinn, Grodin made rapid strides in films, playing a memorable supporting role in 1968 in Rosemary’s Baby.
Charles Grodin was born on Sunday, April 21, 1935 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA as Charles Grodinsky. He made his film debut in an unrecognized role as a drummer boy for Disney’s 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. When Grodin first arrived in New York in 1956 as a young actor, he worked as a night watchman on the Brooklyn waterfront, earning him $ 1.62 an hour, but he worked in New York under famous actress and instructor Uta Studied acting at HB Studios in the city. Hagen. He was active in theater in the 1980s, appeared in Absence of a Cello in 1979 and directed Lovers and Other Strangers in 1949. In addition, in 1919, he played a small but memorable role as a naïve obstetrician in the adaptation of Rosemary’s Baby and Mike Nichols. Of the anti-war novel Catch-22 in 1970.
Grodin gained film stardom in 1972 with his role in Elaine May’s cult comedy The Heartbreak Kid. He played the role of an immature salesman who breaks up with his new wife (Jenny Berlin, May’s daughter) and falls in love with another woman (Sybil Shepherd) during their honeymoon. . He then starred in several outstanding films including 11 Harrowhouse in 1974 (which Grodin also adapted for the film), King Kong in 1976 and Chor in 1977. In 1977, he also hosted Saturday Night Live and sang the music of that episode with guest, Paul Simon.
Friends of Robert De Niro saw his dry wit and charm by Chicago employees during the shooting of the film Midnight Run. It was a road show that passed through Chicago in 1987. Our publisher, Barbara Roche, traveled with the film as a Holzer Roche casting for a lifetime experience, which sometimes required a Navajo translator to audition. Grodin shared a Thanksgiving dinner with the cast and crew and New Year’s Eve 1988. Roche remembers him as charming, professional and a pleasure to work with.
For decades he continued his memorable deadpan performances in film and television in projects such as Heaven Can Wait, The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank, Sunburn, It’s My Turn, Seams Like Old Times, The Incredible Shrinking Woman. The Great Muppet Semper, The Woman in Red, Movers and Shakers, Last Resort, Eicher, The Couch Trip, You Can’t Every Love, Midnight Run and Taking Care of Business.
His first play, The Price of Fame, premiered in New York at the Roundabout Theater in 1990. In the 1990s he continued to gain new and young fans in hit films such as Beethoven (1 and 2), Dave, So I Married An X Murderer, Heart. And Souls, Clifford, and it runs in the family.
In the mid-1990s, Grodin retired from acting, and wrote several biographies, and became a talk show host on CNBC and a political commentator for 60 Minutes in 2000.
Grodin returned to the big screen in the 2006 Jason Bateman-Zach Braff comedy The X and featured an episode of Law and Order SVU and The Michael J. Did an episode of the Fox show.
Grodin was honoured by the Connecticut Press Club as the recipient of the Mark Twain Award for Comedy in 2014 and continued to work as an actor on both TV and film, most recently in the 2016 TV mini-series Madoff An incomplete murder as Carl Shapiro and writer in the drama in 2017.
Charles Grodin is survived by his wife of 38 years Alyssa Derwood Grodin and his son Nicholas Theodore Grodin.