Zach Norman obit

Zack Norman, Actor in ‘Romancing the Stone’ and Henry Jaglom Films, Dies at 83

He started out as a stand-up comic, produced plays and films and financed Peter Davis’ Oscar-winning documentary ‘Hearts and Minds.’ 

He was not on the list.

Zack Norman, the stand-up comic, actor and producer perhaps best known for his turn as a crocodile-loving antiquities smuggler in Romancing the Stone, has died. He was 83.

Norman died Sunday night of natural causes at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, his family announced.

Norman collaborated frequently with director Henry Jaglom, with the two working together on Tracks (1976), Sitting Ducks (1980), Venice/Venice (1992), Babyfever (1994), Déjà Vu (1997), Festival in Cannes (2001), Hollywood Dreams (2006), Irene in Time (2009), Queen of the Lot (2010), The M Word (2014) and Ovation (2015).

In Robert Zemeckis’ action-adventure Romancing the Stone (1984), starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, Norman and Danny DeVito play the smuggling cousins Ira and Ralph, respectively.

“Look at those snappers,” Ira says in admiration whenever he sees a croc.

(He and Douglas would get into a legal spat over a company that they co-founded.)

Norman also appeared on the big screen in James Toback’s Fingers (1978), Milos Forman’s Ragtime (1981), Robert Downey Sr.’s America (1986) and Roger Donaldson’s Cadillac Man (1990) and as a guest star on TV shows including The Flash, Baywatch, The A-Team and The Nanny.

Howard Jerrold Zuker was born in Boston on May 27, 1940, and raised in nearby Revere. He attended the Governor’s Academy and Vanderbilt University before receiving an executive MBA degree from Harvard Business School.

He started out as a stand-up comic, performing in Playboy clubs, at The Flamingo in Las Vegas and at the Copacabana in New York, and he made it onto The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1969.

Norman produced John Arden’s Live Like Pigs, a long-running drama that opened off-Broadway in 1965, and helped finance films including Peter Davis’ Hearts and Minds (1974), which won the Oscar for best documentary feature, and movies made in Italy.

In the presidential election year of 2016, Norman polished off Chief Zabu, a film he had directed, co-written and co-produced in 1986 about a real estate developer (played by Allen Garfield) with political ambitions. (He played a struggling comedian in the movie as well.)

“Though its mix of the loopy, the broad and the deadpan is uneven, its story of American business designs on a tiny Polynesian nation still has satirical bite,” The Hollywood Reporter’s Sheri Linden wrote in her review.

Norman began performing as a stand-up comedian in strip joints and nightclubs while producing his first Off-Broadway play, the New York premiere of John Arden's Live Like Pigs, which opened on June 7, 1965. In 1966 he left for Europe to work the U.S. Army base circuit operating out of Frankfurt, Germany, playing army clubs throughout Western Europe. On June 7, 1967, Norman opened at the Playboy Club in London, England, where Variety wrote he was "hysterical... one of the funniest guys ever to cross these shores". Soon he was appearing in every Playboy Club on their 18-venue circuit, as well as appearing in hotels and nightclubs such as The Flamingo in Las Vegas and New York's Copacabana with the Temptations. Norman made his television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on April 28, 1969. As a stage actor, he starred in more than 20 plays. His performance in the title role of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Stamford Center for the Arts in Connecticut (1980) was locally acclaime

Norman also was an art collector who owned paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Survivors include his wife, Nancy; sister Jane; daughters Lori and Tracy; sons Stephen and Michael; and grandchildren Sascha, Addison, Benjamin, Henry, Liliana, Jonathan, Justin, Jayden, Jackie, Gabrielle, Rachel, Susie, Joseph and Seth.

 

Filmography

Film acting

E.N.T.E.R. (2018)

Chief Zabu (2016)

Ovation (2016)

The M Word (2013)

Queen of the Lot (2010)

Irene in Time (2009)

Emma Blue (2008)

Hollywood Dreams (2006)

Festival in Cannes (2001)

Has Been (1998)

Get a Job (1998)

Crosscut (1996)

Mojave Moon (1996)

Babyfever (1994)[37]

Lucky Ducks (1993)

Venice, Venice (1992)

Cadillac Man (1990)

America

Romancing The Stone (1984)

Ragtime (1981)

Sitting Ducks (1980)

Fingers (1978)

Tracks (1977)

Gums (1976)

Touch Me Not (1974)

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1971)

Which Way Do You Dig? (1969)

Love with the Proper Stranger (1963)

Television acting

The A-Team (Double episode, 1985)

Az aranyifjú [The Golden Boy] (1986, Hungarian TV movie)

The Flash (1 episode, 1991)

At Home with the Webbers (1993)

Baywatch (1 episode, 1993)

Lush Life (1993)

Az áldozat [The Victim] (Hungarian TV documentary, 1994)

The Nanny (3 episodes, 1993–1995