Jerry Adler, who began his career behind the scenes as a theater director before becoming an actor at 60, has died at 96. He was also known for roles in The Good Wife and Northern Exposure.
Jerry Adler, the Jewish American actor best known for his role in The Sopranos, has died at the age of 96, his family announced Saturday.
Adler, a Brooklyn native, began his career behind the scenes in theater before turning to acting in his 60s. On HBO’s The Sopranos, he played Herman “Hesh” Rabkin, a trusted adviser to mob boss Tony Soprano, portrayed by James Gandolfini. He also starred as the abrasive attorney Howard Lyman in The Good Wife.
Audiences also remember him as Rabbi Alan Schulman in Northern Exposure and as Mr. Wicker, the building superintendent, in Mad About You.
His introduction to show business came in 1950, while studying at Syracuse University. His father, Philip, then general manager of the Group Theatre, was working on the Broadway musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes starring Carol Channing, and offered his son a job as assistant stage manager. “I am a product of nepotism,” Adler admitted in a 2015 interview with TheaterMania.
He went on to work as a director, production manager and supervisor on numerous stage productions, including the original runs of Annie and Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain Tonight! He collaborated with theater legends such as Arthur Miller, Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles and Angela Lansbury.
Adler made his screen debut in 1991 in an episode of the sitcom Brooklyn Bridge and later appeared in several films.
In 2000, he came full circle when he returned to Broadway, not backstage, but as an actor, in Elaine May’s comedy Taller Than a Dwarf. He returned again in 2015, playing the bedridden father of Larry David in the play Fish in the Dark.
He is survived by his wife, psychologist Joan Laxman, whom he married in 1994.
