OT: Lou Jacobi
Bobcat
October 25, 2009
Lou Jacobi, Critically Acclaimed Actor of Film and Stage, Dies at 95
Lou Jacobi, the mustachioed, scene-stealing Canadian-born actor and
comedian who made a film and stage career playing comic ethnic
characters but was lauded for serious dramatic roles as well, died on
Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was
95. Louis Harold Jacobovitch was born on Dec. 28, 1913, in Toronto. He
began acting as a boy, making his stage debut in 1924 at a Toronto
theater, playing a violin prodigy in "The Rabbi and the Priest." He
did play the violin, then and for most of his life. Mr. Jacobi made
his Broadway debut in 1955 in "The Diary of Anne Frank," playing a
less-than-noble occupant of the Amsterdam attic where the Franks were
hiding, and reprised the role in the 1959 film version. When Bosley
Crowther, reviewing
the movie in The New York Times, described Mr. Jacobi as "irksomely
sluggish and pathetically lax as the weakling Van Daan," it was high
praise. As his career continued in New York and Hollywood, spanning
five decades, Mr. Jacobi became accustomed to favorable reviews,
mostly in comic roles and often
when the film or play itself was less than warmly received. When he
starred in the short-lived Broadway comedy "Norman, Is That You?" in
1970, Clive Barnes of The Times did not care for the play, but took
time to wax rhapsodic about Mr. Jacobi and his character. "Mr. Jacobi
is a very funny actor who hardly needs lines to make his point," Mr.
Barnes wrote. He added: "He has a
face of sublime weariness and the manner of a man who has seen
everything, done nothing and is now only worried about his heartburn."
The 10 Broadway plays Mr. Jacobi appeared in also included Paddy
Chayefsky's "Tenth Man" (1959); Woody Allen's "Don't Drink the
Water" (1966); and Neil Simon's "Come Blow Your Horn" (1961), in which
he portrayed the playboy rotagonist's
disappointed father. His reading of the line "Aha!" stuck with the
Times columnist William Safire so vividly that he cited it when
writing about the meaning of the word 36 years later. Mr. Jacobi also
made two dozen feature films. His supporting roles included the
philosophical bartender in "Irma la Douce" (1963), the young hero's
unsophisticated uncle in "My Favorite Year" (1982), a lucky florist in
the Dudley Moore comedy "Arthur" (1981) and a middle-aged transvestite
who gets caught with his hostess's clothes on in "Everything You
Always Wanted to Know About Sex" (1972). In Barry Levinson's
"Avalon" (1990), he played a dramatic role, one of four Russian
brothers trying to build a future in Baltimore in the early 20th
century.