Michael Lerner, the Brooklyn-born character actor who performed a myriad of imposing figures in his 60 years within the enterprise, together with monologuing film mogul Jack Lipnick in “Barton Fink,” the crooked membership proprietor Bugsy Calhoun in “Harlem Nights” and an offended publishing government in “Elf” has died. He was 81.
His nephew, actor Sam Lerner, introduced his dying in an Instagram publish on Sunday. Sam Lerner wrote that his uncle died Saturday however didn’t present additional particulars. Neither his nor Michael Lerner’s representatives instantly responded to requests for additional remark.
“He was the coolest, most confident, talented guy,” Sam Lerner wrote. “Everyone that knows him knows how insane he was — in the best way…we’re all lucky we can continue to watch his work for the rest of time. RIP Michael, enjoy your unlimited Cuban cigars, comfy chairs, and endless movie marathon.”
Born in 1941 to Romanian-Jewish dad and mom and raised in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, Michael Lerner started performing domestically as a teen and into his days at Brooklyn College, the place he acquired the prospect to play Willie Loman in “Death of a Salesman.” His ambitions to pursue performing professionally crystalized when he obtained a Fulbright Scholarship and selected to review theater on the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, the place he lived in an residence with Yoko Ono for a time, showing in her quick movie “Smile.” His brother, Ken Lerner, additionally turned an actor.
Lerner moved to Los Angeles in 1969, on the urging of an agent who noticed his work on the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. He began getting forged in tv reveals, together with “M(asterisk)A(asterisk)S(asterisk)H,” “The Brady Bunch” and “The Rockford Files,” making his movie debut in Paul Mazursky’s “Alex in Wonderland,” alongside Charlotte Rampling. But he thought of his first vital position to be within the tv film “Ruby and Oswald” (he performed Jack Ruby) with Brian Dennehy.
In 1981, he was forged in Bob Rafelson’s remake of “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” alongside Jack Nicholson, who he known as probably the most beneficiant actors he’d ever labored with, and Jessica Lange. A longtime cigar aficionado, Lerner felt out of his depths when he was requested to smoke a cigarette in a scene with Nicholson in a jail. Lerner mentioned he held the cigarette with each fingers.
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He felt extra comfy taking part in cigar-smoking journalist and politician Pierre Salinger in “Missiles of October,” for which Jackie Kennedy as soon as advised him that he’d “out Pierre’d Pierre.”
Lerner additionally liked working with John Sayles on “Eight Men Out,” during which he performed Arnold Rothstein, the crime boss who conspired to repair the 1919 World Series.
“Most of the time I don’t rehearse, but I do a lot of preparation. Especially for a biographical character or one of the studio heads,” he mentioned in 2016. “I did a lot of research for Barton Fink and looked into Louis B. Mayer and all the moguls in Hollywood.”
Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Barton Fink,” launched in 1991, is the movie Lerner is most remembered for.
“I had auditioned for Joel and Ethan before, for Miller’s Crossing. So I walked into the room, as the character, and I don’t say hello to anybody. And I sit down behind my desk and do this big speech: ‘Bart! Bart! So great to see you,’” Lerner mentioned in 2016. “I did the monologue the way I wanted to do it and I just walked out of the room and that was it. And Joel and Ethan were just sitting in a corner just laughing and laughing and that was it.”
Lerner, who drew inspiration from Preston Sturges films, mentioned the Coens didn’t give him a lot performing route and “were a little nervous that I was talking so fast” however that they let him do what he wished.
The position acquired him his first and solely Oscar nomination, however in 1992, the Academy Award for supporting actor went to Jack Palance for “City Slickers.”
The Coens known as him years later to do a cameo in “A Serious Man.”
Lerner additionally mentioned he was incessantly acknowledged for his turns in Eddie Murphy’s “Harlem Nights” and “Elf,” as Fulton Greenway. He additionally performed Cher’s father within the tv spinoff of “Clueless.”
In the late 90s, he was excited to get an opportunity to work with Woody Allen on the movie “Celebrity,” but it surely was a horrible expertise, he mentioned in a 2016 interview.
“He is a schmuck,” Lerner mentioned. “And the movie’s a piece of s—-.”
Lerner additionally appeared in a number of greater blockbusters over time, together with “Godzilla” as Mayor Ebert, “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” as Senator Brickman, and “Mirror Mirror” as Baron.
“Those are good parts but not great acting roles,” Lerner mentioned.
And he by no means felt cheated by being often called a “character actor” somewhat than a number one man. In 1999, in an interview with Cigar Aficionado, he mentioned, merely, “Every role is a character role.”
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