George Segal, the Oscar-nominated actor who exploded alongside Richard Burton in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” performed Glenda Jackson’s romance in “A Touch of Class” and won a laugh in a TV sitcom as the grandfather Jewish Albert “Pops” Solomon on “The Goldbergs,” died at the age of 87.
“The family is appalled to announce that George Segal died this morning due to complications from bypass surgery,” his wife Sonia Segal said in a statement Tuesday.
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George Segal appears as Albert ‘Pops’ Solomon in a scene from the ABC sitcom ‘The Goldbergs’
(Photo: AP via ABC)
Humorous and witty, Segal excelled in dramatic and humorous roles, most recently playing the widow set on “The Goldbergs.”
“Today we lost a legend,” Adam F. Goldberg, who created the TV series based on his own life, wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
“It was a real honor to be a small part of George Segal’s amazing legacy. For a very real reason, I ended up throwing the perfect man to play Pops. Just like my grandfather, George was a child at heart with magic spark, “Goldberg said.
Segal’s long-term manager Abe Hoch said in a statement that he would miss “warmth, humor, kindness and friendship. He was an amazing man.”
Segal’s acting course began on New York stage and television in the early 1960s. He quickly moved into film, starring in the star-studded ensemble drama “Ship of Fools” and a terrifying, intimidating physical body in a World War II prisoner of war camp in “King Rat” in 1965. .
Two years later he won an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the hilarious wedding drama “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
“Elizabeth and Richard were the king and queen of the world at that time and there was a lot of excitement about it,” Segal told the Daily Beast in 2016. “For me, it was a great satisfaction to be involved with him.”
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George Segal will play the banjo at his Los Angeles home, February 1997
(Photo: AP)
But it was in comedies that Segal cemented his star status in a series of films in the 1970s with A-list directors and co-stars like Jackson, who won an Oscar for his performance in “A Touch of Class.”
Segal a lawyer in the dark comedy 1970 “Where’s Poppa” played with Ruth Gordon, a jeweler thief with Robert Redford in 1972’s “The Hot Rock,” an out-of-control gambler in Robert Altman’s “California Split” and Beverly Philandering Hills divorce lawyer in Paul Mazursky ‘s “Blume in Love” in 1973.
He starred opposite Jane Fonda in “Fun with Dick and Jane,” fell for Barbra Streisand’s charm in “The Owl and the Pussycat” and played Natalie Wood’s husband in “The Last Married Couple in America. “
“I always try to find the humor and the irony in whatever character I’m playing because I think of myself as a comedian,” Segal said in an interview with the online film magazine filmtalk.org in 2016.
“So that makes drama a lot more fun for me by not taking it as important, you know. “
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George Segal stands with a replica of his star at a ceremony honoring him on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, February 2017
(Photo: AP)
He believed the early appearance of the late-night talk show “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” for the transition to humorous roles.
“This was the first time that the filmmakers saw me doing comedy and getting this funny exchange with Carson,” Segal told the Orlando Sentinel in 1998.
He said he saw himself as lucky in a business he did compared to gambling because you are always waiting for your lucky number, or a large part, to emerge.
He also had a lifelong passion for banjo and performed at Carnegie Hall New York in 1981 with his band, the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band.
George Segal was born on February 13, 1934, in Great Neck, Long Island, New York. Although his ancestors were Russian Jewish immigrants, his family was not religious. In interviews Segal summarized his Jewish experience as going to Passover Seder at the house of Groucho Marx where the comedian asked, “When will we reach the wine?”
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George Segal, center, with Ben Gazzara, and Robert Vaughn left Vienna on August 2, 1968
(Photo: AP)
Segal was a shy child but said he felt free on stage. After watching the movie “This Gun for Hire” when he was 9 years old, he knew he wanted to take action. After serving in the Army and graduating from Columbia University with a drama degree, he made his film debut in “The Young Doctors” in 1961.
Two of Segal’s most notable achievements – in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and as Biff Loman in Arthur Miller’s 1966 TV film “Death of a Salesman” – were in roles played by actor Robert Redford rejected.
“I’m very grateful to Redford. I think I may have thanked him when we did ‘The Hot Rock’,” he told Variety in 2017.
When Segal’s film career ended in the 1980s he appeared in TV movies and series before returning to the big screen in support roles that included “Look Who’s Talking” in 1989 and ” The Cable Guy “in 1996 by Jim Carrey.
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Costars ‘Just Shoot Me’ George Segal, left, and Laura San-Giacomo on a news tour in California, January 1997
(Photo: AP)
He found a younger generation of fans as the publisher of a women ‘s magazine in the acclaimed TV comedy “Just Shoot Me !,” which ran from 1997 to 2003.
“It could make characters that should look like lovable jerseys,” producer Steve Levitan, who worked with Segal on “Just Shoot Me,” told Variety in a 2017 interview.
Segal said he didn’t think about retirement because people offered him interesting jobs.
“Being in your 70s is ok but, when you reach your 80s, you get creaky,” he told Variety. “I have a second wind – although I’m not going as fast as I used to.”