R.I.P. George Segal

George Segal died the other day at the age of 87

For people my age, he was a sitcom actor in two long running series, Just Shoot Me! and The Goldbergs, where he could often be the funniest part of the show. But he was also playing an elder role in an ensemble cast and he did so with ease.

Of course his career was a lot longer and more colorful than those roles would suggest. He studied at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen. After being an understudy in the legendary 1956 production of The Iceman Cometh that starred Jason Robards and was directed by Jose Quintero, Segal worked under Joseph Papp at the Public Theatre, was a member of the legendary improv troupe The Premise, and appeared on Broadway before he went to Hollywood in the early 1960’s.

Segal spent years working in TV and film, in ensemble casts (The Longest Day) and leading roles (King Rat) before his biggest role, the 1966 adaptation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where he starred with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Sandy Dennis. The Mike Nichols production is essential viewing, one of the key texts in understanding and thinking about how to translate theater to the screen, about Albee’s language, and these four characters and indelible performances.

For the next fifteen years or so, Segal had a great run as an actor. There were flops, of course, but he worked with some of the best American directors on comedies, dramas, and a lot of work that straddled the genres and were a part of that era’s efforts to craft a new language and style of film.

California Split (Robert Altman). The Terminal Man (Mike Hodges). Bye Bye Braverman (Sidney Lumet). Blume in Love (Paul Mazursky). Where’s Poppa? (Carl Reiner). That doesn’t even mention films like A Touch of Class, Loving, The Hot Rock, The Owl and the Pussycat, Fun with Dick and Jane, Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?

For more than a decade Segal had the enviable career of being a leading man and a character actor. Which I suppose must have made the fall even worse. Apparently there was bad behavior, there were drugs, but Segal turned things around and by the nineties was a character actor again in film, he returned to Broadway. And then found success in television. Along the way he was also a noted banjo player and recorded a few albums,

Segal had that quality that so many successful actors. There was charm, there was intelligence, and maybe it’s just me but he always felt deeply familiar in so many ways. He lived a full life and there’s nothing sad in an old man dying after a long, full life. But it’s worth raising a glass over such a life.