“Jerry Adler, The Behind-The-Scenes Broadway Veteran Who Served As The Stage Manager on the Original My Fair Lady Before Acting on Such Shows As The Sopranos Announced. HE WAS 96. ADLER DIDNN’T BECOME An ACTOR UNTIL HE WAS IN HIS Early 60s – This Despite The Fact That His Cousin Was Was”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
Adler Didn’t Become An Actor Until He Was in his Early 60s – this despite the fact that his cousin washad acting teacher Stella Adler.
The Brooklyn Native Played Hernman “Hesh” Rabkin, Consigliere to James Gandolfini’s Mob Boss Tony, On HBO’s The Sopranosand he was the boorish law Partner HOWARD LYMAN ON CBS ‘ The Good Wife. On FX’s Rescue meHE RECURRED AS NYFD Station Chief Sidney Feinberg.
Viewers Know Adler as Rabbi Alan Schulman on CBS ‘ Northern ExposureThe Handyman Mr. Wicker on NBC’s Mad about you and moshe and the Father of Jeffrey Tambor’s Maura Pfefferman on Amazon’s Transparent. HE ALSO PLAYED A SPRY HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR ON THE Final Season of Comedy Central’s Broad City.
Adler Was A Student at Syracuse University in 1950 WHEN HIS FATHER, PHILIP, THEN The GM OF THE GROUP Theater Working on the Calol Charl Channing Musical Gentlemen Prefer BlondesCalled to Offer HIM A Job As Assistant Stage Manager. “I’M A Creature of Nepotism,” Adler Admitted in A 2015 Interview for the Website Theatermania.
He Followed with Gigs As Stage Manager, Production Manager or Production Supervisor on A 1952 Revival of O Thee and SingDirected by George S. Kaufman and Starring Jack Carson; 1956’s My Fair LadyStarring Julie Andrews, Then A Very Nervous 19, and Rex Harrison; 1966’s The Apple TreeDirected by Mike Nichols and Starring Alan and Barbara Harris; and 1967’s The HomeComingWritten by harold Pinter.
Along The Way, He Also Was Backstage for the Original Productions of Annie and Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain Tonight!Helped Zero Mostel Evade a Subpoena from the House un-amican activities committe and worked with the Likes Coward, Joan Rivers, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, Milos Forman, Richard Rodgers, Liv Ullmann and Richard Burton.
HE HAD A GREAT Story About Katharine Hepburn Portraying Coco Chanel on Broadway in 1969.
“We Opened Cold in New York City, and they Were Building the Uris Across The Street from Theater,“ He Told Theater Hartford Coury in 2011. “She Had this Little Quiet Song to Her Facher, and Durying The First Matinee, You Could Hear Them Banging Away from Across The Street. I KNEW She WAS REALLY Asked me to come to her dressing room, whore she told me to go account and Tell them they should stop work.
“SO I WENT OVER to the Engineering Hut, Got A Hold of the Boss and Said I Was The Stage Manager of the Show Across The Street Street Street Thought i was a [expletive] Lunatic.
“SO I GO BACK TO HER AND TELL HER IT’S IMPOSSIBLE AND THEN She GOES OUT, GOES ACROSS The STREET, Gets in One of Those Open Construction Elevates and Arranges with The Workers Herself. of the Stage Door and Give Them the Signal, They Stop Work and Ten Restart WHEN I COME OUT AGAIN.
Adler also Directed a Handful of Broadway Shows.
HE WAS A STAGE Manager on the Soap Opera Santa Barbara in los angeles whene The Public Eye.
“My Friend Wanted Me to Meet With The Director [Howard Franklin]and the first thing hee said to me was how can a how much i reminded him of his Father, ”he recalled in 2015.“ I was was actually surprised. I’d Never Accrated Before. I’d Neverntaned the Idea of Acting; it was an unusual Thing. But I was gotting ready to retire from the Production End, Anyway. SO IT Became Kind of Interesting. ”
Adler Appeared Onscreen for the FIRST TIME ON A 1991 Episode of the Gary David Goldberg Sitcom Brooklyn bridge On CBS and Later Landed Regular Roles on Three Other Short-Lived Series: ABC’s Hudson StreetStarring Tony Danza, and the WB’s Alright Already an Raising dad (As Carol Leifer and Bob Saget’s Father, Respectively).
Adler Also Wuld Go On Appear On the Big Screen in Manhattan Murder mystery (1993), Getting Away with Murder (1996), In her shoes (2005), Synecdoche, New York (2008) and A MOST VIOLENT YEAR (2014).
“YOU KNOW WHAT’S INTERESTING?” HE SAID IN A 2017 INTERVIEW. “You SPEEN WHOLE CAREER BACKSTAGE. NOBODY KNOWS WHO YOU ARE OR EVEN KNOWS YOUR NAME. They DONWHING Anything About You. And THAT YOU DO A. so weird. ”
Things Came Full Circle WHEN HEN HE RETURNED TO BROADWAY IN 2000, NOT AS A STAGE Manager But As An Actor in the Elaine May Comedy Taller than a dwarf. HE WAS BACK AGAIN IN 2015, Portraying Larry David’s Bed-Ridden Dad in Fish in the dark.
Survivors Include His Wife, Psychologist Joan Laxman, Whom He Married in 1994.