Martin Balsam Biography (1919-1996)



Full name, Martin Henry Balsam; born November 4, 1919, in New York, NY; diedof a stroke (one source says heart attack), February 13, 1996, in Rome, Italy(while on vacation). Actor. Balsam was a character actor who portrayed morethan one hundred roles on stage and screen. He began his acting career in the1935 production of Pot Boiler at the Playground Theatre in New York City. His Broadway debut came in 1941 with Ghost for Sale. For the next four years, Balsam served with the U.S. Army as a radio operator in a B-24 bomber in the China-Burma-India campaign. When he returned from his wartime service, Balsamstudied with Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. His work at the Studio led to his being cast as Gillette, the investigator, in Kazan's 1954 film On the Waterfront. In his more than sixty-year acting career, Balsam appeared frequently on the television scene. He costarred in the series ArchieBunker's Place, and in episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man, Search for Tomorrow, and The Untouchables. He also made guest appearances on The TwilightZone, The Ed Sullivan Show, Rawhide, Dr. Kildare, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and The Fugitive. He was also in the miniseries Queenie and the television movies James A. Michener's "Space" and Raid on Entebbe. His work on Entebbe earned him an Emmy Award nomination. His film credits include Psycho, Twelve AngryMen, Hombre, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Silence of the Hams, both versions of Cape Fear (1962 and 1991), Breakfast at Tiffany's, and A Thousand Clowns (for which he received an Academy Award). "The supporting role is always potentially the most interesting in a film," Balsam told the Los Angeles Times in 1966,after accepting his Oscar for best supporting actor. The following year he received an Antoinette Perry Award for You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running. Balsam's other stage performances were in Death of a Salesman, The Iceman Cometh, Camino Real, The Rose Tattoo, and The Liar, among many others.

Occupation
actor
Birth Details
November 4, 1919
New York, New York, United States
Death Details
February 13, 1996
Rome, Italy

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