Charles Grodin

Early career

Grodin's film debut was an uncredited bit part in Disney's 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.^[12] A student of Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen, he made his Broadway debut in a production of Tchin-Tchin, opposite Anthony Quinn.^[13] In 1964, Grodin played Matt Stevens on the ABC soap opera The Young Marrieds.^[14] The following year, he became an assistant to director Gene Saks and appeared on several television series including The Virginian.^[1]

In 1966, Grodin co-wrote and directed the Broadway play Hooray! It's a Glorious Day...and All That. Around this time, he turned down the part of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate because of the low salary offered by producer Lawrence Turman, although Turman assured Grodin that the part would make him a star, as it ultimately did for Dustin Hoffman. In 1968, Grodin had a small but pivotal part playing an obstetrician in the horror film Rosemary's Baby and directed the Broadway play Lovers and Other Strangers.^[15][16] He then directed his first television special, Songs of America, with Simon and Garfunkel in 1969.

1970s

After a supporting role in the 1970 film Catch-22, Grodin gained recognition as a comedy actor with the lead role in the 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid.^[17] In 1974, he both starred in and contributed to the screenplay for 11 Harrowhouse. After that film's rocky reception, Grodin returned to New York and took over directing duties of Herb Gardner's Thieves, which ran on Broadway from 1974 to 1975.^[18]

Grodin subsequently appeared in several films during the decade, including the 1976 version of King Kong, the hit 1978 comedy Heaven Can Wait, and Albert Brooks's 1979 comedy Real Life. Alongside his work on screen, Grodin remained active on Broadway, frequently appearing in and producing several plays.

1980s

In 1981, Grodin landed 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. Grodin's 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 prime-time-soap sendup Fresno, playing the evil son of a raisin matriarch (Carol Burnett).

Grodin's 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 Grodin's 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."^[19] 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."^[13]

Aside from his film work, Grodin was a frequent presence on television. In 1977, Grodin hosted an episode of the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live, where the entire episode revolved around his forgetting that the show was live, and Grodin proceeded to wreck sketches because of his failure to prepare accordingly.^[20] His many talk show appearances from the 1970s to the early 2020s often included confrontational and mock angry segments. At one time, Johnny Carson "banned" Grodin from The Tonight Show appearances after taking offense at things Grodin had said. The NBC network would receive angry letters from viewers who did not understand the joke that he was playing a persona, trying to be as different from typical talk show guests as possible. Grodin's appearances on Late Night With David Letterman would sometimes erupt into shouting and name-calling, but Letterman always enjoyed Grodin's segments.^[21]

1990s

Grodin's career took a turn in 1992, when he played the nervous family man George Newton in the family comedy Beethoven, opposite Bonnie Hunt. The film was a box-office hit, and Grodin reprised the role in the 1993 sequel, Beethoven's 2nd. Also in 1993, Grodin played the role of Harrison Winslow in the film Heart and Souls.^[22] After a supporting role in the acclaimed Ivan Reitman comedy Dave, Grodin signed on to play The Old Man in the 1994 limited release sequel to A Christmas Story, It Runs in the Family (a.k.a. My Summer Story). That same year also saw the much-delayed release of Clifford, in which Grodin portrayed the frustrated uncle opposite Martin Short's title role.

From 1995 to 1999, Grodin hosted his own issues-orientated cable news talk show, The Charles Grodin Show. It originated as a nightly show on CNBC, replacing Tom Snyder after he left to start The Late Late Show on CBS.^[23] The show was dropped by CNBC in 1998, but aired for a final year as a weekly show on MSNBC^[24] before ending its run in late 1999.^[25]

2000s

From 2000 to 2003, Grodin was a political commentator for 60 Minutes II. In 2004, he wrote The Right Kind of People, an off-Broadway play about co-op boards in certain buildings in Manhattan. Grodin's commentaries were 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.

After a 12-year-long hiatus from film, Grodin returned to acting in 2006 in the comedy The Ex starring Zach Braff.^[26]

2010s

In the 2010s, Grodin made more frequent acting appearances, guest starring on television shows such as Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and The Michael J. Fox Show. He had several supporting roles in films, including Barry Levinson's The Humbling (2014) and Taylor Hackford's The Comedian (2016). Grodin also had a prominent supporting role in Noah Baumbach's While We're Young (2015), playing a celebrated documentary filmmaker and the father of one of the lead characters.

In 2015, Grodin was cast in a recurring role in Louis C.K.'s FX show Louie as Dr. Bigelow, C.K.'s philosophical doctor and mentor in Season 4 and 5. In an interview with Deadline Hollywood, Grodin talked about his relationship with C.K. stating, "I find him to be the single most talented person ... I've ever worked with, he's a wonderful director, writer, and actor."^[27][28] Grodin also portrayed the philanthropist and defrauded investor Carl J. Shapiro in the 2016 miniseries Madoff on ABC based on the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme debacle.^[29] His final movie was An Imperfect Murder: The Private Life of a Modern Woman, released in 2017.

Grodin was also a prolific author and published his final book in 2013.

Film

Television

Theatre