Larry Gelman obit

 

Larry Gelman, R.I.P.

 He was not on the list.

My friend Larry Gelman was in a lot of TV shows and movies. I think he guested something like eight times on Barney Miller as different people and he even got an Emmy nomination for one of those appearances.

He was Dr. Bernie Tupperman the urologist on The Bob Newhart Show. He was a member of the weekly poker game on The Odd Couple with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. He was on three or four episodes of The Monkees. He was Hubie Binder on Maude. He was Officer Bernstein on Eight is Enough. He was on Night Court a half-dozen times.

His IMDB page lists 118 credits for him. I don't think that's even half-complete but if you look over it, you may notice that most of the shows that hired him had him back over and over, often playing different roles. That says something about how reliable an actor he was, about how people liked having him around and how they knew that no matter what the part was, big or small, Larry would do something memorable with whatever they gave him.

Larry was this cute little guy — I'm not sure he was even five feet tall — who always seemed to be happy and pleasant…and working. One reason IMDB doesn't have all his credits is that he did some real small parts in some movies without billing. Another is that he appeared in a couple of cheapo R-rated comedies under other names.

One cheapo R-rated film he did use his real name in was a thing called Slumber Party '57 which I like to say was "Not the worst movie ever made but certainly in the bottom two." I would not have made it past the first three minutes of the videocassette version except that a lady friend of mine was in it…and she was nice enough to tell me when I could fast-forward through scenes she wasn't in.

Also in the film were Larry as a cat burglar and Joe E. Ross as a policeman. Among the many reasons Bridget hated making this movie was that Joe E. Ross, she said, was unable to be on the set with a woman without touching her and suggesting they go someplace where he could touch her more and vice-versa. When she first told me these stories, it was before I'd met Larry and I asked her how he was. She said, "Thank heaven for him. He was a perfect gentleman. He even tried to stop the man playing the cop from misbehaving towards us."

Larry died early yesterday morning at the age of 90. He'd been hospitalized for a bad fall and there were complications and…well, a friend of his sent out an e-mail that said that his final audience was his beloved wife Barbara and nine I.C.U. nurses. I'm sure, no matter how much pain he was in, he made them all laugh. Just a delightful man.

He was known for playing Dr. Bernie Tupperman on the TV series The Bob Newhart Show and Vinnie, the poker playing friend of Oscar and Felix, in the original TV series version of The Odd Couple.

Gelman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 3, 1930.

On television, Gelman portrayed Leo Gold in Free Country,  Irv Schlosser in Grand Slam, Dr. Hubie Binder in Maude  officer Bernstein on Eight Is Enough, Al Clemens on Mork & Mindy and Max on Needles and Pins.

Gelman appeared in other American television series, including The Monkees (3 episodes), Batman, Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, My Three Sons, The Doris Day Show (3 episodes), The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Carol Burnett Show, Rhoda, Kojak (2 episodes), Quincy M.E., CHiPS, The Love Boat, Laverne & Shirley, One Day at a Time (2 episodes), Barney Miller (4 episodes), The Facts of Life, Simon & Simon, Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, Cagney & Lacey (3 episodes), Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Mr. Belvedere (2 episodes), In the Heat of the Night (2 episodes), Night Court (3 episodes), Doogie Howser, M.D., The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Touched by an Angel and ER. He appeared in Tales from the Darkside Love Hungry (series 4, episode 11, 1988) as Elmo. He also was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Drama Series, for his guest-starring appearance on the episode "Goodbye, Mr. Fish: Part 2" of the American sitcom television series Barney Miller.

In film, Gelman appeared (credited as Larry Spelman) in the X-rated 1976 film Alice in Wonderland with Kristine DeBell, and the adult comedy Chatterbox (1977) starring Candice Rialson. He also had roles in Disney's Superdad (1973), The Strongest Man in the World (1975), Tunnel Vision (1976), Raid on Entebbe (1977), The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal (1979), The Frisco Kid (1979), O'Hara's Wife (1982), Dreamscape (1984), Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), The Naked Cage (1986) and Mr. Saturday Night (1992).

On Broadway, Gelman portrayed Tambi Rothman in The Roast (1980). His other stage activities included touring in a production of The Odd Couple and playing Albert Einstein in Einstein: A Stage Portrait.

Gelman also played Einstein in the real-time strategy games Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge.