Jack Albertson

Harold "Jack" Albertson was born on June 16, 1907, in Malden, Massachusetts, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants Flora and Leopold Albertson. His father abandoned the family before Jack was born, and he was raised by his stepfather, Alex Erlich, a barber. His mother, a stock actress, supported the household by working in a shoe factory. His older sister was actress Mabel Albertson. Albertson dropped out of high school after a single year and held a variety of jobs, including work at a General Electric plant, in shoe factories in the Lynn, Massachusetts area, and as a rack boy in pool parlors, where he developed skills as a pool hustler. It was in those pool halls that he first learned tap dance routines from fellow hustlers. He was known as Harold Albertson until the age of 22.

Albertson's performing career began in his teens, when he started earning money for prize-winning shows. His sister Mabel taught him his first tap dance time steps, and he supplemented that training by observing vaudeville acts that came through his hometown. He sang with a group called The Golden Rule Four and eventually joined the vaudeville road troupe known as the Dancing Verselle Sisters. He subsequently worked in burlesque as a soft shoe dancer and straight man to Phil Silvers on the Minsky's Burlesque Circuit. Early in his career he also worked in radio, appearing on programs including Just Plain Bill, Lefty, That's My Pop, and The Jack Albertson Comedy Show, and serving for a time in the late 1940s as a regular on the Milton Berle Show.

Albertson's Broadway career spanned from 1940 to 1972 and encompassed both musicals and plays. His stage credits include the musical Allah Be Praised!, Tickets, Please!, Top Banana, and The Sunshine Boys, for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. His most celebrated stage role was John Cleary in The Subject Was Roses, which opened in 1964. That performance earned him the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1965, and he also received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance in 1973.

Albertson reprised the role of John Cleary in the 1968 film adaptation of The Subject Was Roses, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His fellow nominees that year included Gene Wilder, for his role in The Producers, and child actor Jack Wild, for Oliver. Albertson later said he apologized to Wild, having expected him to win. The Subject Was Roses win placed Albertson among a small group of actors who have received both the Tony and the Academy Award for the same role. He went on to appear in more than 30 films, including a minor early role in Miracle on 34th Street as a postal worker who redirects letters addressed to Santa Claus to the courthouse where Kris Kringle is on trial. He played Charlie Bucket's grandfather, Grandpa Joe, in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in 1971, and portrayed Manny Rosen, husband to Belle, played by Shelley Winters, in The Poseidon Adventure in 1972. Albertson expressed regret that he was unable to reprise his Sunshine Boys stage role in the film version; when MGM began preparing to shoot in early 1975, he was committed to his television series Chico and the Man.

On television, Albertson co-starred as Ed Brown on the NBC sitcom Chico and the Man alongside Freddie Prinze, remaining with the series for its entire run from 1974 to 1978. He won an Emmy Award for that role in 1976. A prior Emmy came in 1975 for a guest appearance on the variety series Cher. His earlier television work included recurring roles on Pete and Gladys, Room for One More, Ensign O'Toole, and Run, Buddy, Run, as well as seven appearances on Mister Ed as Paul Fenton between 1961 and 1964. He also appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone, a 1967 episode of The Andy Griffith Show, and co-starred with Sam Groom in the Canadian series Dr. Simon Locke from 1971 to 1972.

His Tony, Oscar, and Emmy wins placed Albertson among the rare group of 24 actors recognized as holders of the Triple Crown of Acting. In 1977, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6253 Hollywood Boulevard. He and his wife, June, had one daughter, Maura Dhu, who is married to actor Wes Studi. Albertson was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 1978 and kept the diagnosis private while continuing to work. His final theatrical role was voicing the hunter Amos Slade in Disney's animated feature The Fox and the Hound, released in the summer of 1981. He died on November 25, 1981, at his home in the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, at the age of 74. He and his sister Mabel, who died ten months later, were cremated and their ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.