Charles Grodin Biography

Charles Grodin (born 21 April 1935) is an American actor, comedian, author, and former cable talk show host.

Grodin began his acting career in the 1960s appearing in TV serials including The Virginian. He had a small part as an obstetrician in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby in 1968. In the 1970s he moved into film acting, including playing the lead in The Heartbreak Kid and a supporting role in Catch-22. He became a familiar face as a supporting actor in many 1980s Hollywood comedies, including Midnight Run, Taking Care of Business, Seems Like Old Times, The Great Muppet Caper, The Woman in Red, The Lonely Guy, Ishtar and The Couch Trip. He is probably best known for his role as George Newton in the 1990s John Hughes comedy franchise Beethoven.

Grodin has won several acting awards, including American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for 1993's Dave, Best Actor at the 1988 Valladolid International Film Festival (for Midnight Run). He was nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for The Heartbreak Kid in 1972. He also shared a 1978 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for his work on The Paul Simon Special.

In the mid-1990s, Grodin became a talk show host on CNBC and in 2000 a political commentator for 60 Minutes II. He has written several autobiographical and acting related works, including 1990's It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here: My Journey Through Show Business and 1994's We're Ready for You, Mr. Grodin.

Early life

Grodin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Orthodox Jewish parents Lena (Singer), who worked as an assistant in the family's store and was a volunteer for disabled veterans, and Theodore I. Grodin, who sold wholesale supplies. His maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Russia, who came from a long line of rabbis and moved to Pittsburgh at the turn of the 20th century. Grodin has an older brother, Jack.

Grodin attended the University of Miami, and left without graduating to pursue acting.

Career

Early career-1950s/1960s

Grodin's film debut was an uncredited bit part in Disney's 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A student of Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen, he made his Broadway debut in a production of Tchin-Tchin, opposite Anthony Quinn. In 1965, he began working as an assistant to director Gene Saks and began appearing on several television series during the 1960s including The Virginian.

Grodin had a small part playing an obstetrician in the 1968 horror film, Rosemary's Baby. In 1964 he played Matt Stevens on the ABC soap opera the Young Marrieds. During the late 1960s, he also co-wrote and directed Hooray! It's a Glorious Day...and All That, a Broadway play, and directed Lovers and Other Strangers and Thieves, also on Broadway. He also directed Simon and Garfunkel's television special Songs of America in 1969.

1970s & 1980s film work

After a supporting role in the 1970 comedy film Catch-22, Grodin gained recognition as a comedy actor when he played the lead role in the 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid. Grodin subsequently appeared in several 1970s films, including 11 Harrowhouse in 1974, the 1976 version of King Kong and the hit 1978 comedy Heaven Can Wait. During this period, he also frequently appeared on Broadway and was involved in producing several plays. One of these, Thieves, he also directed.

In 1981, he landed in a role in The Great Muppet Caper playing Nicky Holiday, a jewel thief who falls in love with Miss Piggy. He also appeared that same year opposite Lily Tomlin in The Incredible Shrinking Woman. His 1980s roles included Neil Simon's Seems Like Old Times (opposite Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn) and 1988's well-reviewed comedy Midnight Run, a buddy movie co-starring Robert De Niro. Grodin also appeared in the 1986 CBS mini-series sendup Fresno, playing the evil son of a raisin matriarch (Carol Burnett).

His Hollywood film roles of the 1980s usually saw him cast as uptight, bland and world-weary white collar professionals, such as a psychiatrist having a nervous breakdown (The Couch Trip), a health conscious accountant (Midnight Run), an ineffectual advertising executive (Taking Care of Business) and a lonely socially awkward nerd The Lonely Guy. He was cast against this type as a scheming CIA agent in Ishtar. Commenting on his work with regard to Ishtar, Hal Hinson in the Washington Post observed: "Grodin has a one-of-a-kind quality on the screen, a sort of inspired spinelessness. And with his cat-burglar rhythms " he seems to play all his scenes as if someone were asleep in the next room " he's become a very sly scene-stealer." Sandra Brennan at Rovi noted that: "Whereas many funnymen have been popular for their ability to overreact and mug their way around everyday obstacles, Grodin belonged, from the beginning, to the Bob Newhart school of wry comedy that values understatement and subtlety."

Aside from his film work, In 1977, Grodin hosted an episode of the NBC sketch show, Saturday Night Live.

1990s " Beethoven

Grodin's career took a turn in 1992, when he played the nervous family man George Newton in the kids' comedy Beethoven, opposite Bonnie Hunt. The film was a box-office hit, and he reprised the role in the 1993 sequel. His next film role was in 1994's It Runs in the Family (a.k.a. My Summer Story), which received only a limited release and was a sequel to the film A Christmas Story. Grodin portrayed the frustrated uncle, alongside Martin Short in the 1994 comedy Clifford. After a 13-year long hiatus from film, Grodin returned to acting in the Zach Braff comedy The Ex (2007).

Radio talk show host

From 1995 to 1998, Grodin hosted his own issues-oriented talk show, The Charles Grodin Show, on CNBC and, starting in 2000, became a political commentator for 60 Minutes II. In 2004, Grodin wrote The Right Kind of People, an Off-Broadway play about co-op boards in certain buildings in Manhattan. Grodin's commentaries continue to be heard on New York City radio station WCBS and other affiliates of the CBS Radio Network, as well as on the CBS Radio Network's Weekend Roundup. He is also a best-selling author; his works include It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here, Spilled Milk and Other Clichés and How I Get Through Life. His book, If I Only Knew Then...Learning from Our Mistakes was released in November 2007 by Springboard Press. It is a collection of essays from his famous friends (and friends of friends), with all author proceeds going to the Help USA charity. His book How I Got To Be Whoever It Is I Am came out in April 2009.

Personal life

Grodin has two children: daughter Marion (a comedian), from his marriage to Julie Ferguson, and son, Nicholas, from his marriage to Elissa Durwood. For a while in the 2000s, Grodin gave up show business to be a stay-at-home dad to his son.

Awards

Year	Award	Film / Program	Role / credit	Won / nominated (W/N)
1972	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	The Heartbreak Kid	Lenny Cantrow	N
1978	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program	The Paul Simon Special	writing credit	W
1988	Valladolid International Film Festival Award for Best Actor	Midnight Run	Jonathan Mardukas	W
1993	Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor	Heart and Souls	Harrison Winslow	N
1993	American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture	Dave	Murray Blum	W

In 2006, Grodin received the William Kunstler Award for Racial Justice.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1964	Sex and the College Girl
1968	Rosemary's Baby	Dr. C.C. Hill
1970	Catch-22	Capt. Aarfy Aardvark
1972	The Heartbreak Kid	Lenny Cantrow	Nominated "? Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1974	11 Harrowhouse	Howard R. Chesser
1976	King Kong	Fred Wilson
1977	Thieves	Martin Cramer
1978	Heaven Can Wait	Tony Abbott
	Just Me and You	Michael Lindsay
1979	Sunburn	Jake
	Real Life	Warren Yeager
1980	Seems Like Old Times	Dist. Atty. Ira J. Parks
	It's My Turn	Homer
1981	The Great Muppet Caper	Nicky Holiday
	The Incredible Shrinking Woman	Vance Kramer
1984	The Woman in Red	Buddy
	The Lonely Guy	Warren Evans
1985	Movers & Shakers	Herb Derman
1986	Last Resort	George Lollar
1987	Ishtar	Jim Harrison
1988	Midnight Run	Jonathan Mardukas	Valladolid International Film Festival Award for Best Actor
	You Can't Hurry Love	Mr. Glerman
	The Couch Trip	George Maitlin
1989	Cranium Command	Left Brain
1990	Taking Care of Business aka Filofax	Spencer Barnes
1992	Beethoven	George Newton
1993	Beethoven's 2nd	George Newton
	Heart and Souls	Harrison Winslow	Nominated "? Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
	So I Married an Axe Murderer	Commandeered Driver
	Dave	Murray Blum	American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
1994	My Summer Story	Mr. Parker (The Old Man)
	Clifford	Martin Daniels
2007	The Ex	Bob Kowalski