George Segal
gigatos | February 16, 2022
Summary
George Segal († March 23, 2021 in Santa Rosa, California) was an American actor. In the 1960s and 1970s, the two-time Golden Globe winner played major roles in many Hollywood films such as Who”s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Man, You”re Class!, later he distinguished himself through television series such as Just Shoot Me and The Goldbergs.
George Segal grew up in a family of Jewish-Russian origin. He graduated from Columbia College and Columbia University, where he also took his first acting lessons. After military service, he studied acting in the late 1950s at the renowned Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg and at the Herbert Berghof Studio with Uta Hagen. He appeared on Broadway in the early 1960s.
In 1961, he signed a contract with Columbia Pictures and gained his first film experience. Segal refused against advice from his agent to choose a less Jewish-sounding last name as his stage name, and thus later became one of the first Hollywood stars with a Jewish name. For a supporting role in the film Residents, he received the Golden Globe Award for Best Young Actor in 1965. In 1965 he played a painter alongside stars such as Vivien Leigh, José Ferrer, Oskar Werner and Heinz Rühmann in Stanley Kramer”s film drama The Ship of Fools. One of his most famous roles was in Mike Nichols” film Who”s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), in which he appeared alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. For his performance in this film, he was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for the Oscar and Golden Globe film awards. Also in 1966, he starred in the spy film Das Quiller-Memorandum – Gefahr aus dem Dunkel, set in Berlin, with Alec Guinness and Senta Berger acting alongside him.
George Segal was seen in numerous leading roles, especially in the late 1960s and the 1970s, under some important directors. He played very different roles, from a mama”s boy (in Bizarre Murders) to a Jewish intellectual in Sidney Lumet”s Bye Bye Braverman to a gangster in Chicago Massacre. In 1969, he portrayed an American lieutenant in the lavish war film The Bridge at Remagen. He won a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of an unfaithful husband in the comedy Man, Are You Class! The following year he starred as a gambling addict in Robert Altman”s film California Split. His market value in Hollywood was at its peak in the mid-1970s, but after that came several film flops.
In 1979, Segal was supposed to play the lead role in Blake Edwards” comedy Ten – The Dream Girl, but was replaced – already during filming – by Dudley Moore. The result was a legal dispute between Edwards and Segal. From the 1980s, Segal had to be content with supporting roles in the cinema, in this decade he played, among others, in the crime thriller They Called Him Stick (1985) alongside Burt Reynolds and Candice Bergen. In the comedy Peek Who”s Talking! (1989) he appeared alongside John Travolta and Kirstie Alley, and in the comedy Cable Guy (1994) alongside Jim Carrey. In the new millennium, he was part of the ensemble cast of Roland Emmerich”s disaster film 2012 (2009) and played Jake Gyllenhaal”s father in the romantic comedy Love and other Drugs (2010). His last cinema role was in 2014 in Elsa & Fred alongside Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer.
Since the 1960s, Segal also appeared regularly on television. He had guest roles in the television series Merciless City, Murder Is Her Hobby and The Larry Sanders Show, among others. After his cinema career was limited to supporting roles, he turned increasingly to television from the late 1980s. He had greater success between 1997 and 2003 with the sitcom Just Shoot Me – Redaktion durchknipst, in which he played the dazzling media mogul Jack Gallo and received two Golden Globe nominations for it. Since 2013, Segal embodied one of the main roles as a grandfather in the comedy series The Goldbergs about a Jewish family. At the time of his death, he was working on the eighth season of the series. In 2017, Segal was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In addition to acting, George Segal played banjo in amateur jazz bands such as Conrad Janis” Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band and released several records. He could also be seen playing the banjo in some of his acting roles. He was also one of the hosts of the Academy Awards in 1976.
Segal was married to film editor Marion Sobel, later Marion Segal Freed, from 1956 until her divorce in 1984, and to Linda Rogoff, temporary manager of the Pointer Sisters, from 1984 until her death in 1996. He has two daughters from his first marriage, including actress Polly Segal (b. 1966). From 1996 until his death, he was married to Sonia Schultz Greenbaum.
Segal died in March 2021 at the age of 87 from complications of heart surgery.
Also read, biographies – Democritus
Television
Oscar
Golden Globe Award
More awards
Sources
