Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb (born Leo Jacoby;[2][3] December 8, 1911 – February 11, 1976) was an American actor.[4] He played the role of Willy Loman in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman under the direction of Elia Kazan. He also performed in On the Waterfront (1954), 12 Angry Men (1957), and The Exorcist (1973). On television, Cobb starred in the first four seasons of the Western series The Virginian. He often played arrogant, intimidating and abrasive characters, but he also acted as respectable figures such as judges. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for The Brothers Karamazov (1958) and On the Waterfront (1954).
Lee J. Cobb | |
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![]() circa 1960s | |
Born | Leo Jacoby December 8, 1911 The Bronx, New York, U.S. |
Died | February 11, 1976 64) | (aged
Resting place | Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1934–1976 |
Spouse(s) | Mary Brako Hirsch (m. 1957) |
Children | 4, including Julie Cobb |
Military career | |
Allegiance | ![]() |
Service/ | ![]() |
Years of service | 1942–45 |
Rank | ![]() |
Unit | First Motion Picture Unit |
Battles/wars | World War II |
Awards | ![]() ![]() |
Background
Cobb was born in New York City, to a Jewish family of Russian and Romanian origin.[5] He grew up in the Bronx, New York, on Wilkins Avenue, near Crotona Park. His parents were Benjamin (Benzion) Jacob, a compositor for a foreign-language newspaper, and Kate (Neilecht).[6] Cobb studied at New York University before making his film debut in The Vanishing Shadow (1934). He joined the Manhattan-based Group Theatre in 1935.[7]
Career
Cobb performed summer stock with the Group Theatre in 1936, when it summered at Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut.[8] During World War II, Cobb served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces.[9]
Cobb entered films in the 1930s, successfully playing middle-aged and even older characters while he was still a youth. His first credited role was in the 1937 Hopalong Cassidy oater Rustlers' Valley where he was billed using the stage name Lee Colt. In all subsequent films, he used Lee Cobb and later Lee J. Cobb. He was cast as the Kralahome in the 1946 nonmusical film Anna and the King of Siam. He also played the sympathetic doctor in The Song of Bernadette and appeared as Derek Flint's (James Coburn) supervisor in the James Bond spy spoofs Our Man Flint and In Like Flint. He reprised his role of Willy Loman in the 1966 CBS television adaptation of the famous play Death of a Salesman, which included Gene Wilder, James Farentino, Bernie Kopell, and George Segal. Cobb was nominated for an Emmy Award for the performance. Mildred Dunnock, who had co-starred in both the original stage version and the 1951 film version, again repeated her role as Linda, Willy's devoted wife.
In August 1955, while filming The Houston Story, Cobb suffered a heart attack and was replaced by Gene Barry.[10]
In 1957, he appeared in Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, the unique trial jury deliberations drama, as the abrasive Juror #3. In 1959, on CBS' DuPont Show of the Month, he starred in the dual roles of Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote in the play I, Don Quixote, which years later became the musical Man of La Mancha. Cobb also appeared as the Medicine Bow, Wyoming owner of the Shiloh Ranch, Judge Henry Garth in the first four seasons (1962–1966), of the long-running NBC Western television series The Virginian (1962–1971).
In 1968, his performance as King Lear with Stacy Keach as Edmund, René Auberjonois as the Fool, and Philip Bosco as Kent achieved the longest run (72 performances) for the play in Broadway history.[11]
One of his final film roles was that of Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police homicide detective Lt. Kinderman in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist about a demonic possession of a teen-age girl (Linda Blair) in Georgetown, D. C.
His last television role was as a stalwart overworked elderly physician still making house calls in urban Baltimore, in Doctor Max, a TV pilot for a potential series which never materialized.
He appeared alongside British actor Kenneth Griffith in an ABC television documentary on the American Revolution called Suddenly an Eagle, which was broadcast six months after his death.
Political activity
Cobb was accused of being a Communist in 1951 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of the U.S. House of Representatives of the Congress, by Larry Parks, himself an admitted former Communist Party member. Cobb was called to testify before HUAC, but refused to do so for two years until, with his career threatened by the blacklist, he relented in 1953 and gave testimony in which he named 20 people as former members of the Communist Party USA.[12]
Later, Cobb explained why he "named names", saying:
When the facilities of the government of the United States are drawn on an individual it can be terrifying. The blacklist is just the opening gambit—being deprived of work. Your passport is confiscated. That's minor. But not being able to move without being tailed is something else. After a certain point it grows to implied as well as articulated threats, and people succumb. My wife did, and she was institutionalized. The HUAC did a deal with me. I was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I couldn't borrow. I had the expenses of taking care of the children. Why am I subjecting my loved ones to this? If it's worth dying for, and I am just as idealistic as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn't worth dying for, and if this gesture was the way of getting out of the penitentiary I'd do it. I had to be employable again.
- — Interview with Victor Navasky for the 1980 book Naming Names
Following the hearing, he resumed his career and worked with Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg, two other HUAC "friendly witnesses", on the 1954 film On the Waterfront, which is widely seen as an allegory and apologia for testifying.
Personal life
Cobb married Yiddish theatre and film actress Helen Beverley in 1940.[7] They had two children, including actress Julie Cobb, before divorcing in 1952. Cobb's second marriage was to school teacher Mary Hirsch, with whom he also had two children.[7]
Death
Cobb died of a heart attack in February 1976 in Woodland Hills, California, and was buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.[13]
He was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.[14]
Other Honors
- 1966, Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement[15]
- 1981, American Theatre Hall of Fame
Selected Broadway credits
- Crime and Punishment (1935)
- Waiting for Lefty (1935)
- Johnny Johnson (1936)
- Golden Boy (1937)
- Death of a Salesman (1949)
- King Lear (1968)
Filmography
![](../I/Lee_j_cobb_brando_on_the_waterfront_2.jpg.webp)
![](../I/Lee_j_cobb_on_the_waterfront_4.jpg.webp)
![](../I/William_Holden-Cobb-Golden_Boy.jpg.webp)
- The Vanishing Shadow (1934) as Roadwork Foreman [Chs. 3, 4] (uncredited)
- North of the Rio Grande (1937) as Goodwin
- Rustlers' Valley (1937) as Cal Howard
- Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937) as Arab
- Danger on the Air (1938) as Tony Lisotti
- Golden Boy (1939) as Mr. Bonaparte
- The Phantom Creeps (1939) as Road Crew Foreman (uncredited) (archive footage)
- This Thing Called Love (1940) as Julio Diestro
- Men of Boys Town (1941) as Dave Morris
- Paris Calling (1941) as Captain Schwabe
- Down Rio Grande Way (1942) (uncredited)
- The Moon Is Down (1943) as Dr. Albert Winter
- Tonight We Raid Calais (1943) as M. Bonnard
- Buckskin Frontier (1943) as Jeptha Marr
- The Song of Bernadette (1943) as Dr. Dozous
- Winged Victory (1944) as Doctor
- Anna and the King of Siam (1946) as Kralahome
- Johnny O'Clock (1947) as Inspector Koch
- Boomerang! (1947) as Chief Harold F. 'Robbie' Robinson
- Captain from Castile (1947) as Juan Garcia
- Call Northside 777 (1948) as Brian Kelly
- The Miracle of the Bells (1948) as Marcus Harris
- The Luck of the Irish (1948) as David C. Augur
- The Dark Past (1948) as Dr. Andrew Collins
- Thieves' Highway (1949) as Mike Figlia
- The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) as Lt. Ed Cullen
- Sirocco (1951) as Col. Feroud
- The Family Secret (1951) as Howard Clark
- The Fighter (1952) as Durango
- The Tall Texan (1953) as Capt. Theodore Bess
- Yankee Pasha (1954) as Sultan
- Gorilla at Large (1954) as Detective Sgt. Garrison
- On the Waterfront (1954) as Johnny Friendly
- Day of Triumph (1954) as Zadok
- The Racers (1955) as Maglio
- The Road to Denver (1955) as Jim Donovan
- The Left Hand of God (1955) as Mieh Yang
- The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) as Judge Bernstein
- Miami Exposé (1956) as Lt. Barton 'Bart' Scott
- 12 Angry Men (1957) as Juror #3
- The Garment Jungle (1957) as Walter Mitchell
- The Three Faces of Eve (1957) as Doctor Curtis Luther
- The Brothers Karamazov (1958) as Fyodor Karamazov
- Man of the West (1958) as Dock Tobin
- Party Girl (1958) as Rico Angelo
- The Trap (1959) as Victor Massonetti
- Green Mansions (1959) as Nuflo
- But Not for Me (1959) as Jeremiah MacDonald
- Exodus (1960) as Barak Ben Canaan
- Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) as Julio Madariaga
- How the West Was Won (1962) as Marshal Lou Ramsey
- The Brazen Bell (1962) as Judge Henry Garth
- The Virginian (Seasons 1-4)
- Come Blow Your Horn (1963) as Harry R. Baker
- The Final Hour (1965) as Judge Garth
- Our Man Flint (1966) as Lloyd C. Cramden
- Death of a Salesman (1966, TV Movie) as Willy Loman
- In Like Flint (1967) as Lloyd C. Cramden
- The Day of the Owl (1968) as Don Mariano Arena
- Coogan's Bluff (1968) as Lieutenant McElroy
- They Came to Rob Las Vegas (1968) as Steve Skorsky
- Mackenna's Gold (1969) as The Editor
- The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970) as Oman Hedgepath
- Macho Callahan (1970) as Duffy
- Lawman (1971) as Vincent Bronson
- Heat Of Anger (1972, TV Movie) as Frank Galvin
- The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) as Harvey Lapchance
- Double Indemnity (1973, TV Movie) as Barton Keyes
- Ultimatum (1973)
- The Great Kidnapping (1973) as Ex Quaestor Iovine
- The Exorcist (1973) as Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Lt. William Kinderman, homicide detective
- Dr. Max (1974 TV movie) as Dr. Maxwell 'Max' Gordon
- Trapped Beneath the Sea (1974, TV Movie) as Victor Bateman
- The Great Ice Rip-Off (1974, TV Movie) as Willy Calso
- The Balloon Vendor (1974) as Twenty Years
- Mark of the Cop (1975) as Benzi
- That Lucky Touch (1975) as Lt. Gen. Henry Steedman
- Mark Shoots First (1975) as Il commendator Benzi
- Nick the Sting (1976) as Robert Clark
- Cross Shot (1976) as Dante Ragusa (final film role)
Radio appearances
Year | Program | Episode/source |
---|---|---|
1945 | Suspense | "The Bet"[16] |
1946 | Hollywood Star Time | The Song of Bernadette[17] |
See also
References
- https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApps?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=173546
- Cinema - Part 1, Issues 205-210 - Page 158
- Clarke, Joseph F. (1977). Pseudonyms. Thomas Nelson. p. 39. ISBN 978-0840765673.
- McQuiston, John T. (February 12, 1976). "Lee J. Cobb, the Actor, Is Dead at 64". The New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
- Scott, Vernon (January 4, 1976). "Bicentennial a 'very special event" for actor Lee J. Cobb". The Pittsburgh Press. Retrieved March 24, 2009.
- United States Census for 1920, Bronx (New York) Assembly District 4, District 254, Page 16
- "Lee J. Cobb Biography". Biography.com. Archived from the original on May 21, 2010. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
- "About". Pinewood Lake Association. Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2012-07-25.
- Betancourt, Mark (March 2012). "World War II: The Movie". Air & Space Magazine. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
- Dixon, Wheeler W. (2005). Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0809326532. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
- "King Lear". IBDB. Retrieved 2012-11-08.
- Navasky, Victor (2003). Naming Names (Reprint ed.). Hill & Wang. pp. 268–273. ISBN 978-0809001835.
- "Biography for Lee J. Cobb". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved May 12, 2010.
- "26 Elected to the Theater Hall of Fame". The New York Times. March 3, 1981. Retrieved 2012-07-25.
- "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
- "Suspense: The Bet". Escape and Suspense!. October 15, 2012.
- "Those Were the Days". Nostalgia Digest. 41 (2): 32–41. Spring 2015.
External links
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