Charles Grodin

Charles Sidney Grodin (April 21, 1935 – May 18, 2021) was an American actor, comedian, author, and television talk show host. Grodin began his acting career in the 1960s, appearing in TV serials, including The Virginian. After a small part in Rosemary's Baby in 1968, he played the lead in Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and supporting roles in Mike Nichols's Catch-22 (1970), the 1976 remake of King Kong, and Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait (1978).

Known for his deadpan delivery and often cast as a put-upon straight man, Grodin became familiar as a supporting actor in many Hollywood comedies of the era, including Real Life (1979), Seems Like Old Times (1980), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), Ishtar (1987), Dave (1993), and Clifford (1994). Grodin co-starred in the action comedy Midnight Run (1988) and in the family film Beethoven (1992). He made frequent appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman.

In the mid-1990s, Grodin retired from acting and wrote autobiographies; he became a talk show host on CNBC and, in 2000, a political commentator for 60 Minutes II. He returned to acting with a handful of roles in the mid-2010s, including in Louis C.K.'s FX show Louie and Noah Baumbach's film While We're Young (2014). Grodin won several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special in 1978 for the Paul Simon Special alongside Chevy Chase, Lorne Michaels, Paul Simon, and Lily Tomlin. 

He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for The Heartbreak Kid in 1972. He won Best Actor at the 1988 Valladolid International Film Festival for Midnight Run and the American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his performance in Dave in 1993. Grodin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Orthodox Jewish parents, Theodore (1900–1953), who owned a store that sold wholesale supplies, and Lena (1907–1996; née Singer), who worked in her husband's business and volunteered for disabled veterans. 

His paternal grandfather had changed the family name from Grodinsky to Grodin. His maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Russia who "came from a long line of rabbis" and moved to Baltimore at the turn of the 20th century. Grodin had an older brother named Jack. Grodin graduated as valedictorian from Peabody High School, where he was elected class president all four years. He attended the University of Miami but left without graduating to pursue acting. He studied acting at HB Studio in New York City under Uta Hagen.

Grodin's film debut was an uncredited bit part in Disney's 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A student of Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen, he made his Broadway debut in a production of Tchin-Tchin, opposite Anthony Quinn. In 1965, he became an assistant to director Gene Saks and appeared on several television series, including The Virginian. Grodin had a small but pivotal part playing an obstetrician in the 1968 horror film Rosemary's Baby. In 1964, he played Matt Stevens on the ABC soap opera The Young Marrieds.

During the late 1960s, he also co-wrote and directed Hooray! It's a Glorious Day...and All That, a Broadway play, and directed Lovers and Other Strangers and Thieves, also on Broadway. He also directed Simon and Garfunkel's television special Songs of America in 1969. However, he turned down the part of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate because of the low salary offered by producer Lawrence Turman, although Turman assured him that the part would make him a star, as it ultimately did for Dustin Hoffman.

Grodin had two children: daughter Marion (a comedian), from his marriage to Julie Ferguson, and son Nicholas, from his marriage to Elissa Durwood. For a period in the 2000s, Grodin gave up show business to be a stay-at-home dad to his children. Grodin died from multiple myeloma at his home in Wilton, Connecticut, on May 18, 2021. He was 86.