Michael Lerner obit

Michael Lerner, Actor in ‘Barton Fink,’ ‘Harlem Nights’ and ‘Eight Men Out,’ Dies at 81

The cigar-loving Oscar nominee also appeared in a movie for housemate Yoko Ono and in other films like 'The Candidate,' 'The Postman Always Rings Twice,' 'Elf' and 'Life During Wartime.' 

He was not on the list.

Michael Lerner, the busy Oscar-nominated character actor who had memorable turns as bombastic types in Barton Fink, Harlem Nights, Eight Men Out and so much more, has died. He was 81.

Lerner died Saturday night, according to an Instagram post from his nephew, Sam Lerner, who is also an actor (The Goldbergs). The cause of death was not immediately known.

“It’s hard to put into words how brilliant my uncle Michael was, and how influential he was to me,” Sam wrote. “His stories always inspired me and made me fall in love with acting. He was the coolest, most confident, talented guy, and the fact that he was my blood will always make me feel special. Everyone that knows him knows how insane he was — in the best way.”

Raised in a Brooklyn housing project as a son of a junk dealer, Lerner specialized in playing authority figures like cops, crooks, politicians and Hollywood tycoons. “His characters have a layer of charm, a thin skin of bonhomie over the blubber of the natural bully,” is how The Guardian once described them.

Before he got to Hollywood, Lerner appeared in an experimental film directed by onetime London housemate Yoko Ono, then played the speechwriter for Robert Redford’s character in Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate (1972).

He made heads turn with a stint as White House press secretary Pierre Salinger on the 1974 ABC telefilm The Missiles of October and as the killer Jack Ruby on the 1978 CBS docudrama Ruby and Oswald.

In Bob Rafelson’s redo of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Lerner was the lawyer for Jessica Lange’s character (Hume Cronyn portrayed the attorney in the 1946 original). And Lerner also stood out opposite Anthony Hopkins and John Cusack in Alan Parker‘s The Road to Wellville (1994) and with Allison Janney in Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime (2009).

The actor also played the callous book publisher Fulton Greenway in Elf (2003), the mayor of New York City named for Roger Ebert in Roland Emmerich’s remake of Godzilla (1998) and U.S. senators in Poster Boy (2004) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).

Lerner auditioned for the part of Det. Dave Starsky on ABC’s Starsky and Hutch (Paul Michael Glaser got the job, of course) and wound up sticking around as the lowlife criminal Fat Rolly on the first two episodes.

He later portrayed a rabbi on NBC’s Hill Street Blues; Mel Horowitz, the Beverly Hills lawyer and father of Cher (Rachel Blanchard), on the first season of the ABC adaptation of Clueless; and Sidney Greene, a Broadway producer who’s mounting a revival of Funny Girl, on Fox’s Glee.

Lerner received his Oscar nomination for his performance as the brash 1930s studio mogul Jack Lipnick in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Barton Fink (1991). He had auditioned for the brothers before — he didn’t get hired for Miller’s Crossing — but arrived this time with a purpose.

“They said the character was a Michael Lerner type, but they didn’t have me come in until the last minute,” he told Cigar Aficionado magazine in a 1999 interview. “I came in and fucking blew them away. I auditioned in character, talking a mile a minute. Joel and Ethan Coen were on the ground, laughing and crying in hysterics, and I just walked out of there. I came in, I did the first big speech and walked out.”

He based Lipnick on legendary MGM producer Louis B. Mayer. “I looked at a lot of documentary footage, I selected a pair of eyeglasses that were exactly the kind he wore, and I picked up on some mannerisms he had,” he said. “It’s fun for an actor to do that.”

A bit earlier, Lerner made his mark as racketeer Arnold Rothstein, the architect of baseball’s 1919 “Black Sox” scandal, in John Sayles’ Eight Men Out (1988), then played the cold-blooded gangster Bugsy Calhoune for Eddie Murphy in Harlem Nights (1989).

In a 1992 interview for NPR’s Fresh Air, he told Terry Gross that one of the best films he ever did was the Spain-produced horror movie Anguish (1987), in which he portrayed an ophthalmologist assistant who’s hypnotized by his mother (Zelda Rubinstein) to go on a killing spree so he can save his flailing eyesight.

“I had been advised by my managers at the time not to do that part because it was so unflattering,” he said. “I played a character that is quite repulsive, but it was a great [role].”

Born on June 22, 1941, Lerner was raised in a housing project in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook. His father, George, “liked to think he was an antiques dealer, but in all actuality he was a junk dealer,” he said.

A sports nut, Lerner appeared as a “quiz kid” at age 13 on a local TV program hosted by sportscaster Bert Lee Jr., then was sports editor of the school newspaper at Lafayette High School. To help out his family, he worked at the Zei-Mar delicatessen owned by his older brother in Brighton Beach.

Lerner attended Brooklyn College (future director Joel Zwick was a classmate) and played Willy Loman in a production of Death of a Salesman, then got his master’s from UC Berkeley. He intended to become an English professor but accepted a Fulbright Scholarship to study theater for two years at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art.

In London, he shared a house with Ono. “She made a movie comprised of bare asses walking on a treadmill,” he said. “I’m in it and so is Paul McCartney. Plus I’m doing narration about censorship and all that crap.”

He joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco in 1968, then moved to Los Angeles a year later to appear in a production of Jules Feiffer’s off-Broadway hit Little Murders. Brooklyn-born filmmaker Paul Mazursky liked him in that and cast him in Alex In Wonderland (1970), starring Donald Sutherland and Ellen Burstyn.

Meanwhile, Lerner was showing up on such TV shows in the ’70s as The Brady Bunch (playing a kind bicycle salesman), That Girl, The Odd Couple, Ironside, The Bob Newhart Show, M*A*S*H, The Rockford Files and Kojak.

After his turn as the colorful Salinger, John F. Kennedy’s press secretary during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he received a nice compliment from former first lady Jackie Kennedy. “I met [her] at a jazz concert at Carnegie Hall and she said, ‘Mr. Lerner, you’ve out Pierre’d Pierre,’ which I thought was very funny,” he recalled in a 2016 A.V. Club interview.

For Harlem Knights, Lerner remarked that “Murphy courted me like crazy. [Producers] wanted Robert Duvall to play the part. I auditioned for Eddie twice and he said, no, he wants me. He had a lot of power, so I got the role.”

On 1980s’ telefilms, Lerner had portrayed Golden Age studio kingpins Jack Warner in This Year’s Blonde and Harry Cohn in Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess before landing on Barton Fink. Even though he lost on Oscar night to Jack Palance of City Slickers, he couldn’t complain.

“I’d been a working character actor for about 20 years, and then all of a sudden I got nominated and my money went up!” he said. He appeared for the Coens again in A Serious Man (2009).

Lerner’s big-screen résumé also included Busting (1974), St. Ives (1976), Strange Invaders (1983), Maniac Cop 2 (1990), Newsies (1992), Amos & Andrew (1993), No Escape (1994), Radioland Murders (1994), For Richer or Poorer (1997), Safe Men (1998), Woody Allen’s Celebrity (1998), Tale of the Mummy (1998), The Mod Squad (1999), My Favorite Martian (1999), Mirror Mirror (2012) and Sidney J. Furie’s Drive Me to Vegas and Mars (2018).

And in 2002, he played an art collector in a West End production of Up for Grabs, starring Madonna.

When he wasn’t working, Lerner collected rare books — in 2012, he put up for auction two 1665 editions of Aesop’s Fables amid other valuable works — and enjoyed Cuban cigars.

“There is a strong argument to be made about the physiological and mental peace” that comes with a good stogie, he said. “Nobody comes to my house between 5 and 6 o’clock. That is when I swim naked, read the trades and smoke cigars.”

He also was part of a regular poker game with the likes of Charles Bronson, Richard Dreyfuss, Jason Alexander, Ed Asner, Milton Berle, Richard Lewis and agent Norby Walters.

Survivors include his younger brother, Ken Lerner, and nephew Sam Lerner — both were on the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs — and niece Jenny Lerner, also an actress.

In his A.V. Club interview, Lerner said he liked a director who appreciated what he brought to the table.

“If a director comes over to me and says, ‘That’s too big, that’s too small,’ those are good directions,” he said. “But my interpretation of a character is instinct. If a director doesn’t like my interpretation, then I have a problem.”

Selected filmography

 

Films

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1968    Smile                Short experimental film directed by Yoko Ono

1970    Alex in Wonderland            Leo     

1971    The Ski Bum     Rod     

1972    The Candidate            Paul Corliss 

1974    Busting            Marvin Royce 

Newman's Law            Frank Acker  

Hangup            Fred Richards          

1976    St. Ives            Myron Green  

1977    The Other Side of Midnight            Barbet 

Outlaw Blues            Hatch  

1979            Goldengirl            Sternberg        

1980    The Baltimore Bullet            Paulie  

Coast to Coast            Dr. Frederick Froll

Borderline            Henry Lydell  

1981    The Postman Always Rings Twice   Mr. Katz    

Threshold            Henry de Vici

1982            National Lampoon's Class Reunion            Dr. Robert Young  

1983    Strange Invaders            Willie Collings           

1985    Movers & Shakers            Arnie   

1987    Anguish            John Pressman         

1988    Vibes            Burt Wilder 

Eight Men Out            Arnold Rothstein         

1989    Harlem Nights  Bugsy Calhoune         

1990    Maniac Cop 2  Deputy Commissioner Edward Doyle 

Any Man's Death   Herb Denner

1991    Omen IV: The Awakening            Earl Knight 

1991    Barton Fink     Jack Lipnick Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor

Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor[citation needed]

1992            Newsies           Weasel

The Comrades of Summer            George

1993    Amos & Andrew            Phil Gillman

1994    Blank Check            Biderman        

Radioland Murders            Lieutenant Cross         

The Road to Wellville            Goodloe Bender         

No Escape            The Warden           

1995    No Way Back            Frank Serlano

A Pyromaniac's Love Story            Perry   

Girl in the Cadillac            Pal      

1997    The Beautician and the Beast            Jerry Miller  

For Richer or Poorer  Phillip Kleinman         

1998            Godzilla          Mayor Ebert   

Safe Men            Big Fat Bernie Gayle    

Celebrity            Dr. Lupus  

Tale of the Mummy            Professor Marcus       

Desperation Boulevard            Manny Green  

1999    The Mod Squad            Howard         

My Favorite Martian            Mr. Channing         

2001            Mockingbird Don't Sing      Dr. Stan York       

2002    101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure            Producer         Voice role

2003    Elf            Mr. Greenway        

2004    The Calcium Kid            Artie Cohen 

Larceny            Pete    

Poster Boy            Jack Kray   

2005    When Do We Eat?            Ira Stuckman        

2006    Love and Other Disasters            Marvin Bernstein         

Art School Confidential            Art Dealer 

The Last Time            Leguzza         

2007    A Dennis the Menace Christmas            Mr. Souse  

Slipstream            Big Mikey 

2008            Yonkers Joe    Stanley

2009    A Serious Man            Solomon Schlutz          

Life During Wartime            Harvey Wiener

2010    Pete Smalls Is Dead            Leonard Proval          

Wax On, F*ck Off       Cy Rosenthal            Short film

2011    Atlas Shrugged: Part I           Wesley Mouch

2012    Mirror Mirror  Baron  

2014    X-Men: Days of Future Past      Senator Brickman         

2015    Ashby            Entwhistle        

2019            Frankenstein's Monster's Monster, Frankenstein            Bobby Fox     

Television

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1963    Dr. Kildare Dr. Brown  1 episode

1969    The Good Guys            Arthur            2 episodes

Three's a Crowd Sid Bagby            Television film

The Brady Bunch   Johnny            1 episode

1970    The Young Lawyers            Anthony Maroni

The Doris Day Show   Mr. Murray 2 episodes

1971    That Girl       Charlie            1 episode

The D.A.            Mark Warren

What's a Nice Girl Like You...? Fats Detroit            Television film

1972    The Bold Ones: The New Doctors            Jack Watson            1 episode

Ironside            Adrian Father

Night Gallery            Dr. Burgess

The Delphi Bureau Cy Turrell

Banacek            Bartender

The Streets of San Francisco            Lou Watkins

1973    Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice    Dr. Nasserman

Firehouse            Ernie Bush            Television film

The Bob Newhart Show            Mr. Carolla 1 episode

Emergency!            Martin Noble

Love Story            Lou Graham

The New Perry Mason  Derek Stocker

1974            M*A*S*H     Captain Bernie Futterman

The Rockford Files     Dr. Ruben Steelman

Arnold Love            2 episodes

Love, American Style            Karatz            1 episode

Chase   Cupid

The Odd Couple Sgt. Chomsky

Reflections of Murder Jerry Steele            Television film

The Missiles of October            Pierre Salinger

1975    Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic            Dr. Marvin Kittredge

The Dream Makers            Mike

A Cry for Help            Philip Conover

Starsky & Hutch   Fat Rolly    2 episodes

Lucas Tanner            Artie            1 episode

Rhoda  Ralph Bentley

1976    Jigsaw John     Arthur Devore

Harry O            Wilt Kane

Police Woman            Guidera

The Rockford Files     Murray Rosner

1978    Ruby and Oswald            Jack Ruby            Television film

Kojak  Dr. Samuel Fine            1 episode

Vegas   Nate Sephanson

Wonder Woman            Ashton Ripley

1979    Hart to Hart     Poker Player

1980            Barnaby Jones Albert Kruger

This Year's Blonde Jack L. Warner            Television film

1982    Hart to Hart     Art Radner 1 episode

1983    Hill Street Blues            Rollie Simone 4 episodes

Blood Feud            Eddie Cheyfitz            Television film

Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess            Harry Cohn

1985            Hollywood Beat            Pilot            Pilot episode

MacGyver            Gartner

The A-Team            Jerry            1 episode

1987            Amazing Stories            Mr. Marvin

Hands of a Stranger            Capt. Cirrillo            Television film

The King of Love    Nat Goldberg

1988    Great Performances            Oscar Hammerstein            1 episode

The Equalizer            Amar

1991    Omen IV: The Awakening            Earl Knight            Television film

1992    The Comrades of Summer            George

1993    Tales from the Crypt            Mr. Byrd     1 episode

1995    Picture Windows            Maestro

Courthouse            Judge Myron Winkleman            11 episodes

1996–97            Clueless           Mel Horowitz            18 episodes

1998–99            Godzilla: The Series            Mayor Ebert    Voice role;

3 episodes

 

2000    Murder at the Cannes Film Festival            Morrie Borelli            Television film

2001    Third Watch            Seymour Morgenstern            1 episode

2003–06            Law & Order: Special Victims Unit            Morty Berger  2 episodes

2004            Kingdom Hospital            Sheldon Fleischer            3 episodes

2007            Entourage         Joe Roberts            1 episode

2008    Dirty Sexy Money            Martin

2009    Saving Grace   Rebbe Jory Quecksilber

2010    The Bannen Way            The Mensch            Web series;

16 episodes

 

2012    The Good Wife            Judge Dwight Sobel            1 episode

Suburgatory            Aaron Laynberg

2013–14            Glee            Sidney Greene 5 episodes

2015            Comedy Bang! Bang!            Darren Schlepping            1 episode

Childrens Hospital            Pop

2016    Maron            Ralph