David Margulies

David Joseph Margulies (February 19, 1937 – January 11, 2016) was an American actor born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. His father, Harry David Margulies, was a lawyer, and his mother, Runya, née Zeltzer, worked as a nurse and museum employee. Margulies earned his degree from City College of New York before embarking on a career that would span stage, film, and television over more than five decades.

His professional stage work began with an off-Broadway appearance in Golden 6 in 1958, the same year he joined the American Shakespeare Festival as an apprentice. That apprenticeship resulted in an Actors' Equity Association contract for the 1960 theater season. Margulies made his Broadway debut in the 1973 revival of The Iceman Cometh, launching a stage career on the Great White Way that continued through 2003. His Broadway credits include Conversations With My Father, in which he starred, as well as Wonderful Town, 42 Seconds from Broadway, and A Thousand Clowns.

On screen, Margulies built a substantial film career beginning with The Front in 1976. Subsequent film appearances included Last Embrace, All That Jazz, Hide in Plain Sight, Dressed to Kill, and Times Square, all in 1979 and 1980, followed by I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can in 1982 and Daniel in 1983. He became widely recognized for his role as Lenny Clotch, the Mayor of New York City, in Ghostbusters (1984) and its 1989 sequel Ghostbusters II. Additional film credits include Brighton Beach Memoirs, 9½ Weeks, Ishtar, Running on Empty, Out on a Limb, A Stranger Among Us, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and Fading Gigolo in 2013.

Margulies was equally active in television, appearing on series including Kojak, Tales from the Darkside, Spenser: For Hire, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, Northern Exposure, Chicago Hope, NYPD Blue, Touched by an Angel, and four episodes of Law & Order. He earned particular recognition for his recurring role as Neil Mink, mob boss Tony Soprano's lawyer, appearing in eight episodes of The Sopranos between 2000 and 2007.

Margulies died on January 11, 2016, of cancer in Manhattan at the age of 78. He was survived by his partner, actress Lois Smith, a son named Johnathon, and a grandson from a previous marriage.