Jon Korkes obit

Jon Korkes, Actor in ‘Catch-22,’ ‘Little Murders’ and ‘Oz,’ Dies at 80

He also appeared in ‘Cinderella Liberty,’ ‘The Day of the Dolphin’ and ‘The Front Page’ and spent the past 17 years teaching at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. 

He was not on the list.

Jon Korkes, the veteran character actor and acting teacher who worked for director Alan Arkin in Little Murders on stage and screen and portrayed the doomed turret gunner opposite him in Mike Nichols’ Catch-22, has died. He was 80.

His death was reported by New York’s Stella Adler Studio of Acting, where he taught from 2008 until November. No details were immediately available.

Korkes “brought decades of experience across film, television and theater into the classroom, meeting each student exactly where they were,” said a statement from the school. “He loved teaching, and his students knew it.”

In 1968, Korkes was working as a reader in auditions for Jules Feiffer’s off-Broadway production of Little Murders when he was cast by director Arkin to play the brother of Marcia Rodd’s character in the Fred Willard-starring black comedy about unrelenting decay in New York City.

He reprised the role of Kenny Newquist alongside Rodd (and other returnees Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson as their parents) in the 1971 Fox film version that also was helmed by Arkin and starred Elliott Gould in Willard’s role of a photographer.

In perhaps his most notable part — though his screen time was limited — he portrayed the young turret gunner Snowden, whose slow, bloody death haunts Arkin’s bombardier Capt. John Yossarian throughout Catch-22 (1970).

“Nichols and Arkin and Feiffer and all those people started me. They were like the slightly older kids who let me play ball with them, and they showed me things and they didn’t kick me out,” Korkes said in a video on the Stella Adler school website. “You don’t forget that.”

In other notable ’70s films, Korkes played an undercover bad guy in Nichols’ The Day of the Dolphin (1973) and a reporter in Billy Wilder’s version of The Front Page (1974), and he showed up in Mark Rydell’s Cinderella Liberty (1973) and Larry Peerce’s Two-Minute Warning (1976) as well.

For television, he appeared on everything from All in the Family to Law & Order: Criminal Intent and recurred as corrections officer Tom Robinson on six episodes of Oz during the HBO drama’s final three seasons (2001-03).

Born on Dec. 4, 1945, Jonathan David Korkes was raised in Marblehead, Massachusetts, where he graduated from Marblehead High School. He made his onscreen debut as a small-time crook in The Out-of-Towners (1970), directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Jack Lemmon in another movie about a crumbling New York.

Meanwhile, he appeared on Broadway in 1969 in The Penny Wars, directed by Barbara Harris, and in 1971 in the one-act Unlikely Heroes.

Korkes’ résumé also included the movies The Outside Man (1972), Between the Lines (1977), Jaws of Satan (1981), Getting Away With Murder (1996), Riding in Cars With Boys (2001) and The Double (2013) and stints on TV on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Rookies, The Larry Sanders Show, Homicide: Life on the Street and three Law & Order series.

He also taught a master class for actors in Rio de Janeiro.

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Big Apple (2001)

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The Good Policeman (1993)

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1981

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The Word (1978)

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8.1

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The Day of the Dolphin (1973)

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1973

 

Cinderella Liberty (1973)

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6.7

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1973

 

Edward Asner, Valerie Harper, and Mary Tyler Moore in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970)

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8.3

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1973

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Great Performances (1971)

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1972

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1972

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Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers, Carroll O'Connor, and Jean Stapleton in All in the Family (1971)

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8.4

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1971

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1970

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Director

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Soundtrack

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7.3

performer: "Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine"

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Self

Days of My Life: actor Jon Korkes on 'The Day of the Dolphin'

Video

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2021

 

Archive Footage

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2015

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