https://deadline.com/2022/04/nehemiah-persoff-dead-obituary-actor-yentl-gunsmoke-was-102-1234995573/

Diner <bwaystars@gmail.com> wrote:

>https://deadline.com/2022/04/nehemiah-persoff-dead-obituary-actor-yentl-gunsmoke-was-102-1234995573/

I had no idea he was still around; good for him for the long life.

I remember him in some roles when he was in his 30s; this guy never
looked young. Good actor, though, with a face that's impossible to
forget.

In article <t2kgmu$5t3$1@dont-email.me>, Adam H. Kerman
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

> Diner <bwaystars@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >>https://deadline.com/2022/04/nehemiah-persoff-dead-obituary-actor-yentl-guns
> >moke-was-102-1234995573/
>
> I had no idea he was still around; good for him for the long life.
>
> I remember him in some roles when he was in his 30s; this guy never
> looked young. Good actor, though, with a face that's impossible to
> forget.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/fl-jj-actor-nehemiah-
persoff-looks-back-102-years-20211006-t4t2kbmyxne6rohdktjn3c33iq-story.h
tml

https://tinyurl.com/4tkftpdd

Actor Nehemiah Persoff looks back at ups and downs of his first 102
years

By TOM TUGEND

OCT 06, 2021 AT 1:21 PM

(JTA) When actor, painter and writer Nehemiah Persoff, at times dubbed
"the last survivor of Hollywood's golden age," was a three-year old
growing up in Jerusalem, he fell in love with his kindergarten teacher.
Desperate to attract her attention, little Nehemiah got on his trike
and rode it in smaller and smaller circles until the trike and its
rider fell over.

"I pretended that I was hurt," Persoff writes in his just-published
autobiography, "The Many Faces of Nehemiah." "So the teacher ran over
and hugged me. I was in heaven."

Nearly a century later, the now-102-year old reminisced, "I learned
then that I could make people believe my exaggerations and make fiction
accepted as truth. I guess I was born an actor."

Now, with some 200 stage, film and television credits on his resume,
including roles in screen classics "Some Like It Hot," "Yentl," "The
Wrong Man" and "An American Tail," Persoff sits in an easy chair
propping up his legs at his home in the California coastal community of
Cambria, recalling the high and low points of a very full life.

Listening to him, via Zoom, was a JTA reporter, himself 96 years old.
Adding up the ages of questioner and responder yielded a total of
almost two centuries, matching the longevity of some of their Biblical
ancestors.

When Persoff was 10, his family left Israel and moved to New York, all
but shattering the boy. He left behind the only friends he knew. Long
"bombarded" with Zionism, he felt that his true mission in life was to
help create a Jewish state.

Arriving in New York in 1929, at the start of the Great Depression,
Persoff and his parents soon discovered that, contrary to mythology,
the streets of America were not paved with gold.

His initial job at a motor repair shop earned him just a handful of
dollars, but he upped this to a princely $35 a week when he landed a
job as a New York subway electrician.

Persoff spent most of his fortune visiting the neighborhood movie
theatre. The rest of his family was not so fortunate, so when he came
home for dinner, he acted out all the parts for an audience consisting
of his parents and siblings.

Having caught the acting bug, Persoff — through the intervention of a
girlfriend — landed a scholarship at the New Theatre acting school. His
first role was as a walk-on as Karl Marx, for a show attended mainly by
Communist party members.

After an extensive make-up job, but not a single line of dialogue,
Persoff walked on the stage. The audience, recognizing the actor as
Marx, burst into a 10-minute long ovation.

His acting career was beginning to take off when, shortly after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was drafted by the
U.S. Army for a three-year engagement. However, he lucked out and was
assigned to form an acting company to entertain soldiers at training
camps and overseas.

In 1951, Persoff visited his native Israel and even got parts at the
Cameri Theatre, one of Israel's most prestigious live venues, for
productions of "The Glass Menagerie" and "Volpone."

While there, he also met his future wife, Thia, whom he credited with
"keeping my feet on the ground." She died earlier this spring.

But the visit to Israel reopened an old scar for Persoff — his failure
to return to his home country to fight in the 1948-49 War of
Independence.

"All my life I promised myself that if Israel were to fight for its
existence, I would be fighting alongside my brothers and sisters," he
said. "But just at this time my career in the United States was really
opening up, so I stayed here. I am still unhappy that I didn't go."

Persoff defines himself as a "character actor," meaning that his role
was generally to act as a foil to the (usually heroic) lead actor.

"If John Wayne, as the hero, rides up and calmly pumps the other guy
full of lead, the victim must be a really bad guy so that the audience
will stay on the hero's side — that means I've played a lot of
gangsters in my life," observed Persoff.

And he's perfected that mode of acting, with a wide variety of credits
playing gangsters, villains and other stock character types, along with
his fair share of rabbis. Persoff has popped up with guest roles in
countless iconic TV shows like "The Twilight Zone," "Alfred Hitchcock
Presents," "Mission: Impossible" and "Gunsmoke." He has also voiced
Papa Mouskewitz, the patriarch of beloved cartoon mouse immigrant
Fievel, across the "American Tail" franchise, spanning four films and
multiple video games.

Almost 30 years ago, Persoff quit acting after suffering a minor stroke
and found it almost impossible to stand on his feet for any length of
time. His final screen role to date was in HBO's 2003 adaptation of
"Angels in America," playing a rabbi.

The positive result of that life change was that Persoff lost his heavy
load of anxieties and tensions. Among the latter, he cited the time he
played the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and started acting like
him at home, ordering his family around and barking at the children.

"It took me quite some time to realize that acting was not living —
it's an art," he noted.

Persoff's final push to change his lifestyle was when he spent a great
amount of time, effort and money to put on a one-man show in San Diego.
He rented a 200-seat theater, but on opening night only 11 seats were
filled.

After moving to Cambria, he became acquainted with a group of painters
and has shown considerable talent — and has found peace — in his new
art form. At this point, he has completed some 250 watercolors, which
have drawn considerable praise and buyers.

Persoff is not religious but, he declared, "I am part of the whole
Jewish experience… It's great to be a Jew."

His unparalleled acting career has taught him a thing or two about
life, which he elaborates on in his book.

"I'm not running down the joys I had in my life," he writes. "Yet there
is a price to pay for everything… My understanding at this point is
that the actor should not have to live the part… Acting is a
distillation of certain moments in life, but it's not life itself."

But "looking back, I am so happy that I became an actor. Yes, there
were hardships, but there were also moments that were nothing short of
heavenly… Thanks for reading my book. I do hope it was worth the
effort."

On Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 2:06:48 PM UTC-5, Dave P. wrote:
> It would be nice to know what the Quality of Life was
> in his last 10-15 years....

He had some problems that come from living 102 years, but maintained his mind perfectly. He and I emailed each other frequently, and he was always happy with his life and his painting. Nick wrote a book a few years ago called, "The Many Faces of Nehemiah," which I highly recommend for his stories about the struggles and successes in the acting business.

And anyone who's seen "Some Like it Hot" will remember this line from his Little Bonaparte speech...

"In duh lass fissel year we made a hundred an' twelve million dollars before taxes... only we didn't pay no taxes!"

A Friend <nope@noway.com> wrote:
> In article <t2kgmu$5t3$1@dont-email.me>, Adam H. Kerman
> <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>
>> Diner <bwaystars@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >>https://deadline.com/2022/04/nehemiah-persoff-dead-obituary-actor-yentl-guns
>> >moke-was-102-1234995573/
>>
>> I had no idea he was still around; good for him for the long life.
>>
>> I remember him in some roles when he was in his 30s; this guy never
>> looked young. Good actor, though, with a face that's impossible to
>> forget.
>
>
> https://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/fl-jj-actor-nehemiah-
> persoff-looks-back-102-years-20211006-t4t2kbmyxne6rohdktjn3c33iq-story.h
> tml
>
> https://tinyurl.com/4tkftpdd
>
>
>
> Actor Nehemiah Persoff looks back at ups and downs of his first 102
> years
>
> By TOM TUGEND
>
> OCT 06, 2021 AT 1:21 PM
>
>
> (JTA) When actor, painter and writer Nehemiah Persoff, at times dubbed
> "the last survivor of Hollywood's golden age," was a three-year old
> growing up in Jerusalem, he fell in love with his kindergarten teacher.
> Desperate to attract her attention, little Nehemiah got on his trike
> and rode it in smaller and smaller circles until the trike and its
> rider fell over.
>
> "I pretended that I was hurt," Persoff writes in his just-published
> autobiography, "The Many Faces of Nehemiah." "So the teacher ran over
> and hugged me. I was in heaven."
>
> Nearly a century later, the now-102-year old reminisced, "I learned
> then that I could make people believe my exaggerations and make fiction
> accepted as truth. I guess I was born an actor."
>
> Now, with some 200 stage, film and television credits on his resume,
> including roles in screen classics "Some Like It Hot," "Yentl," "The
> Wrong Man" and "An American Tail," Persoff sits in an easy chair
> propping up his legs at his home in the California coastal community of
> Cambria, recalling the high and low points of a very full life.
>
> Listening to him, via Zoom, was a JTA reporter, himself 96 years old.
> Adding up the ages of questioner and responder yielded a total of
> almost two centuries, matching the longevity of some of their Biblical
> ancestors.
>
> When Persoff was 10, his family left Israel and moved to New York, all

Of course,back then it had yet to become Israel.

> but shattering the boy. He left behind the only friends he knew. Long
> "bombarded" with Zionism, he felt that his true mission in life was to
> help create a Jewish state.
>
> Arriving in New York in 1929, at the start of the Great Depression,
> Persoff and his parents soon discovered that, contrary to mythology,
> the streets of America were not paved with gold.

[did anyone ever actually take that line seriously?]

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

Didn't know the name but googling his face ... wow.. yes

I forgot to say that with Persoff's death, the oldest reasonably-famous-in-the-USA male actor is now...

Larry Storch, at 99.

(Oldest actress: Marsha Hunt, at 104.)

On Monday, April 25, 2022 at 12:14:23 PM UTC-4, Lenona wrote:
> I forgot to say that with Persoff's death, the oldest reasonably-famous-in-the-USA male actor is now...
>
> Larry Storch, at 99.
>
> (Oldest actress: Marsha Hunt, at 104.)

It's a shame how we have to keep up with the no-talent young guns even though
they have nothing to offer in order to join in the fun when they die. It can't just be,
"Who the hell is that, never heard of him", all the time. You have to stay up on
them to enjoy it when they go down. You don't have to watch their stinking films
or listen to their garbage music, just an awareness of their popularity with the
public. Because that's where the real fun is, not in the death of the celebrity but
in the mournful wails of their followers. You know, the memorial crowd, flowers
and teddy bears and hugs all around mingled with tears. Crowding the street to
share their sadness and to revel in the oneness of it all. Reaching out with some
sort of sick desperation akin to thousands of poor people lined up to get a glimpse
of the Pope through his darkened limo windows. I can't speak for all, but while
sometimes it's fun just to know someone famous has died, it is surely more of
a kick when they are highly popular and in their prime. It's fun to watch the
insane hysteria when a trending icon dies.

Lenona wrote:

> >

> I forgot to say that with Persoff's death, the oldest reasonably-famous-in-the-USA male actor is now...
> >
> > Larry Storch, at 99.
> >
> > (Oldest actress: Marsha Hunt, at 104.)

You know you're old when you're too old to act old. Like Henry Fonda and
Katherine Hepburn in "On Golden Pond". They were too old. Then on top
of it, at times, I could see Henry trying to act old when he was already there
in all its disgusting glory. I hate when old people do that. But it's not their
fault. They are actors, or so they claim. If I were the director and really liked
the script I would insist on younger actors playing older people - because they're
better at it. As a director you gotta have the guts to look a famous actor in the
eye and say, "Sorry, but right now you're simply too old to have the energy to
play old - we're going to find someone else."

Anyway, I saw Persoff in a lot of different things. I do not think he was so
much a character actor as he was an overbearing and at time unintentionally
funny actor from the method school of Brando and others who loved to
scream at the camera. Persoff and Rod Steiger were two of a kind that way.
Method all the way. I don't like it.