George Segal

George Segal Jr. (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor and musician. He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. After first rising to prominence with roles in acclaimed films such as Ship of Fools (1965) and King Rat (1965), he co-starred in the drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

Through the next decade and a half, Segal consistently starred in notable films across a variety of genres including The Quiller Memorandum (1966), The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), No Way to Treat a Lady (1968), The Bridge at Remagen (1968), Where's Poppa? (1970), The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), Born to Win (1971), The Hot Rock (1972), Blume in Love (1973), A Touch of Class (1973), California Split (1974), The Terminal Man (1974), The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976), Fun with Dick and Jane (1977), Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978), The Last Married Couple in America (1980), and Carbon Copy (1981). He was one of the first American film actors to rise to leading man status with an unchanged Jewish surname, helping pave the way for other major actors of his generation.

Later in his career, he appeared in supporting roles in films such as Stick (1985), Look Who's Talking (1989), For the Boys (1991), The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), Flirting with Disaster (1996), The Cable Guy (1996), 2012 (2009), and Love & Other Drugs (2010).

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and won two Golden Globe Awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in A Touch of Class.

On television, he had regular roles in two popular sitcoms, playing Jack Gallo on Just Shoot Me! (1997–2003) and Albert "Pops" Solomon on The Goldbergs (2013–2021).

Segal also performed on the banjo, making music recordings and playing the instrument in some of his film and television appearances.

Early life

George Segal Jr. was born on February 13, 1934, in New York City, the youngest of four children, to Fannie Blanche Segal (née Bodkin) and George Segal Sr., a malt and hop agent. He spent much of his childhood in Great Neck, New York. All four of Segal's grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants, and his maternal grandparents changed their surname from Slobodkin to Bodkin. A paternal great-grandfather ran for governor of Massachusetts as a socialist. His oldest brother, John, worked in the hops brokerage business and was an innovator in the cultivation of new hop varieties; he had a farm in Grandview, Washington where George often helped in the summers. The middle brother, Fred, was a screenwriter; and his sister Greta died of pneumonia before Segal was born.

Segal's family was Jewish, but he was raised in a secular household. When asked if he had had a bar mitzvah, he said:

I'm afraid not. I went to a Passover Seder at Groucho Marx's once and he kept saying, "When do we get to the wine?" So that's my [Jewish] experience. I went to [a friend's] bar mitzvah, and that was the only time I was in Temple Beth Shalom. [Jewish life] wasn't happening that much at the time. People's car tires were slashed in front of the temple. I was once kicked down a flight of stairs by some kids from [the local parochial school].

Segal became interested in acting at the age of nine, when he saw Alan Ladd in This Gun for Hire. "I knew the revolver and the trench coat were an illusion and I didn't care," said Segal. "I liked the sense of adventure and control." He also started playing the banjo at a young age, later stating: "I started off with the ukulele when I was a kid in Great Neck. A friend had a red Harold Teen model; it won my heart. When I got to high school, I realized you couldn't play in a band with a ukulele, so I moved on to the four-string banjo."

When his father died in 1947, Segal moved to New York City with his mother. He graduated from George School, a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania, in 1951 and attended Haverford College. He graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in performing arts and drama. He played banjo at Haverford and also at Columbia, where he played with a dixieland jazz band that had several different names. When he booked a gig, he billed the group as Bruno Lynch and his Imperial Jazz Band. The group, which later settled on the name Red Onion Jazz Band, played at Segal's first wedding.

Segal served in the United States Army during the Korean War. While there, he played in a band called Corporal Bruno's Sad Sack Six.

Career

Early roles and success

After college and the army, Segal eventually studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and at HB Studio with Uta Hagen and got a job as an understudy in the 1956 off-Broadway production of The Iceman Cometh starring Jason Robards. He appeared in Antony and Cleopatra for Joseph Papp and joined an improvisational group called The Premise, which performed at a Bleecker Street coffeehouse and whose ranks included Buck Henry and Theodore J. Flicker. Segal continued to perform on Broadway with roles in Gideon (1961–62) by Paddy Chayefsky, which ran for 236 performances, as well as Rattle of a Simple Man (1963), an adaptation of a British hit, with Tammy Grimes and Edward Woodward.

He was signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1961, making his film debut in The Young Doctors. Segal made several television appearances in the early 1960s, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Armstrong Circle Theatre, and Naked City, and appeared in the well-known World War II film The Longest Day (1962). He also had a small role in Act One (1963) and a more prominent part in the western Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964) alongside Yul Brynner.

Segal came to Hollywood from New York City to star in a TV series with Robert Taylor that never aired. Nonetheless, he joined the cast of Columbia Pictures' medical drama The New Interns (1964), and the studio then put him under long-term contract. The role ultimately earned him the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, alongside Harve Presnell and Chaim Topol.

Critical acclaim

In 1965, Segal played an egocentric painter in an ensemble cast led by Vivien Leigh and Lee Marvin in Stanley Kramer's acclaimed drama Ship of Fools, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The same year, he also had the title role of a scheming POW in the well-regarded war drama King Rat (a role originally meant for Frank Sinatra) and received acclaim for both performances. In other notable film appearances, he played a secret service agent on assignment in Berlin in The Quiller Memorandum (1966) (a role originally meant for Charlton Heston), an Algerian paratrooper who becomes a leader of the FLN in Lost Command (1966), and a Cagney-esque gangster in Roger Corman's The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967).

Segal also appeared in several prominent television films, playing Biff in an acclaimed production of Death of a Salesman (1966) next to Lee J. Cobb, a gangster in an adaptation of The Desperate Hours (1967), and George in an adaptation of Of Mice and Men (1968). The latter two films were both directed by Ted Kotcheff, with whom he worked again several times.

Segal was loaned to Warner Bros. for Mike Nichols' directorial debut Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), adapted from the Edward Albee play. The film has garnered critical approval from the time of its release onward. Nichols had previously directed Segal in a 1964 Off-Broadway play titled The Knack and cast him again in Woolf after Robert Redford had turned down the role. In the four-person ensemble piece, Segal played the young faculty member, Nick, alongside Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Sandy Dennis. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and was later selected for the National Film Registry, and Segal was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe.

Leading man

For over ten years after his success with Woolf, Segal received many notable film roles, often working with major filmmakers and becoming a significant figure in the New Hollywood movement. He starred in Carl Reiner's celebrated dark comedy Where's Poppa? (1970), played the lead role in Sidney Lumet's Bye Bye Braverman (1968), starred with Robert Redford in Peter Yates's diamond heist comedy The Hot Rock (1972), starred in the title role of Paul Mazursky's acclaimed romantic comedy Blume in Love (1973), and starred alongside Elliott Gould as a gambling addict in Robert Altman's California Split (1974).

In one of his most successful roles, Segal played a philandering husband in Melvin Frank's continental romantic comedy A Touch of Class (1973) opposite Glenda Jackson. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, Jackson won an Oscar for her performance, and Segal won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, which was the second Golden Globe of his career.