George Segal Biography

George Segal (born February 13, 1934) is an American film, stage, and television actor.

Early life

George Segal, Jr. was born in 1934 in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, the son of Fannie Blanche (née Bodkin) and George Segal, Sr. His family was Jewish. He was educated at George School, a private Quaker preparatory boarding school near Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He also attended Haverford College. He graduated in 1955 from Columbia University.

Career

Segal has played both drama and comedy, although he is more often seen in the latter. Originally a stage actor and musician, Segal appeared in several minor films in the early 1960s in addition to the well-known 1962 movie The Longest Day. He was signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1961, making his film debut in The Young Doctors and appearing in The Naked City produced for television by Columbia's Screen Gems.

He started attracting roles in 1965 as an egocentric painter in Ship of Fools, as a P.O.W. in King Rat in a role originally meant for Frank Sinatra, and as an Algerian paratrooper captured at Dien Bien Phu, who leaves the French army to become a leader of the FLN in Lost Command. He was loaned to Warner Bros for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (as Nick, for which he was nominated for an Oscar), later appearing as a British secret service agent in The Quiller Memorandum, a Cagneyesque gangster in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a perplexed police detective Mo Brummel in No Way to Treat a Lady, a bookworm in The Owl and the Pussycat, a war-weary platoon commander in The Bridge at Remagen, a man laying waste to his marriage in Loving, and a hairdresser turned junkie in Born to Win. In 1967, Segal released his debut LP titled The Yama Yama Man; the title track is a ragtime version of "The Yama Yama Man" (1908) with horns and banjos. Segal apparently released the album due to his popularity playing banjo on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson".

Segal starred with Ruth Gordon in Carl Reiner's 1970 dark comedy Where's Poppa? He played Dortmunder, the Donald Westlake-inspired wisecracking burglar in the 1972 comedy The Hot Rock with Robert Redford, a comically unfaithful husband in A Touch of Class and a midlife crisis victim in Blume in Love. He co-starred with Jane Fonda as suburbanites-turned-bank-robbers in Fun with Dick and Jane, and starred as a faux gourmet in Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?

Segal was relatively inactive in the 1980s, but bounced back as the sleazy father of Kirstie Alley's baby in Look Who's Talking, and in the 1993 sequel Look Who's Talking Now. He played a left-wing comedy writer in For the Boys (1991). His first starring role in many years came opposite JoBeth Williams in the 1992 comedy Me, Myself & I.

He also notably starred in the NBC award-winning television sitcom Just Shoot Me! (1997"2003) as Jack Gallo, the eccentric but lovable publisher of a New York fashion magazine, alongside Wendy Malick, Laura San Giacomo, Enrico Colantoni, and David Spade.

Segal is an accomplished banjo player; he played with a dixieland jazz band while in college at Columbia that had several different names. When he was the one who booked a gig, he would bill the group as "Bruno Lynch and his Imperial Jazzband". Recent engagements in Los Angeles have included guest spots with the award-winning residency Guitarology.

The group, which later settled on the name Red Onion Jazz Band, later played at his first wedding. In 1974 he played in A Touch of Ragtime, an album with his band, the Imperial Jazzband (which, other than its name, may or may not have had any relation to his college band). During the 1970s/80s, Segal made frequent television appearances with the "Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band", whose members included actor Conrad Janis on trombone. Segal's banjo skills were referenced in The Simpsons episode, A Fish Called Selma, while on a date with Troy McClure Selma says "I once went on a date with a famous actor and had a wonderful time" to which Troy replies "Really...who was it, George Segal? I hear he plays the banjo." In Martin Scorsese's 1985 black comedy After Hours, Cheech and Chong play art thieves who steal a valuable sculpture by the artist George Segal, whom Cheech helpfully explains is "that dude who plays the banjo on The Tonight Show."

Segal portrayed the elderly upright bassist Tony Delgatto in 2012. Most recently, he played the character Murray Berenson in the television series Entourage.

He recently worked as a main cast member in the TV Land sitcom, Retired at 35 (2011"12). Segal's most current work is for a new ABC sitcom called The Goldbergs, produced by Adam Sandler's production company, Happy Madison. The series is planned for the small screen in the 2013-14 television season, with Segal working alongside luminaries Adam Goldberg and Jeff Garlin.

Works

Filmography

• The Young Doctors (1961)
• The Longest Day (1962)
• Channing, (1963)
• Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964)
• The New Interns (1964)
• King Rat (1965)
• Ship of Fools (1965)
• Lost Command (1966)
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
• The Quiller Memorandum (1966)
• The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)
• Bye Bye Braverman (1968)
• No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)
• The Girl Who Couldn't Say No (1968)
• The Bridge at Remagen (1969)
• Loving (1970)
• Where's Poppa? (1970)
• The Owl and the Pussycat (1970)
• Born to Win (1971)
• The Hot Rock (1972)
• Blume in Love (1973)
• A Touch of Class (1973)
• The Terminal Man (1974)
• California Split (1974)
• Russian Roulette (1975)
• The Black Bird (1975)
• The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976)
• Fun with Dick and Jane (1977)
• Rollercoaster (1977)
• Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978)
• Lost and Found (1979)
• The Last Married Couple in America (1980)
• Carbon Copy (1981)
• The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood (1984)
• The Cold Room (1984)
• Stick (1985)
• Not My Kid (1985)
• Take Five (1987)
• Run for Your Life (1988)
• Murphy's Law (1988"1989)
• Look Who's Talking (1989)
• For the Boys (1991)
• Me, Myself & I (1992)
• Joshua Tree (1993)
• Look Who's Talking Now (1993)
• Direct Hit (1994)
• To Die For (1995)
• The Babysitter (1995)
• The Naked Truth (1995"1997) (4 episodes)
• It's My Party (1996)
• Flirting with Disaster (1996)
• The Cable Guy (1996)
• The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
• Tracey Takes On... (1997) (5 episodes)
• Just Shoot Me! (1997"2003)
• Heights (2004)
• Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone (2005)
• Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure (2007) (voice)
• Private Practice (2007) (1 episode)
• Boston Legal (2008) (1 episode)
• Pushing Daisies (2009) (1 episode)
• Entourage (2009; 3 episodes)
• 2012 (2009)
• Made for Each Other (2009)
• Love and Other Drugs (2010)
• Retired at 35 (2011"12)
• The Goldbergs (2013-)

Discography

• The Yama Yama Man (1967)