Joseph Bologna

Joseph Bologna (December 30, 1934 – August 13, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, and Broadway performer born in the Parkville section of Brooklyn, New York, to an Italian-American family. He attended St. Rose of Lima school before going on to Brown University, where he studied art history. Bologna subsequently served with the United States Marine Corps and later worked producing and directing television commercials in Manhattan.

Bologna's career as a writer began in collaboration with his wife, Renée Taylor. The two co-wrote a play drawn from the real circumstances of planning a wedding on short notice, navigating the involvement of his Italian extended family and her Jewish relatives. That work was adapted into the 1970 film Lovers and Other Strangers, in which Bologna also appeared, and several of his actual family members participated as extras. The screenplay earned Bologna and Taylor a shared Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. The following year, in 1971, the couple again wrote and performed together in Made for Each Other.

On screen, Bologna built a substantial body of work across film and television. He portrayed the brother of James Caan's widowed protagonist in Neil Simon's 1979 romance Chapter Two. In 1982, he played King Kaiser, a character based on Sid Caesar, in the comedy My Favorite Year, which starred Peter O'Toole as a drunken film star modeled after Errol Flynn. Bologna appeared as the mad scientist Dr. Malavaqua in the 1985 comedy Transylvania 6-5000 and starred alongside Michael Caine in Blame It on Rio that same year. In 1999, he played Lenny Koufax, the father of Adam Sandler's character, in the comedy Big Daddy. In 1976, he starred opposite Lucille Ball in the television drama What Now, Catherine Curtis?, and from 1987 to 1988 he headlined the TV musical sitcom Rags to Riches as Nick Foley, a millionaire who becomes an adoptive father. His voice work included Inspector Dan Turpin in Superman: The Animated Series from 1996 to 1998 and Mr. Start in Ice Age: The Meltdown in 2006.

Bologna and Taylor also worked together on stage and in television appearances, including two episodes of the sitcom The Nanny, in which Taylor was a series regular. Bologna appeared in the sixth-season episode "Maternal Affairs" as a love interest for Taylor's character and in the first-season episode "The Gym Teacher" as a celebrated actor.

On Broadway, Bologna was active from 1981 to 2001. He starred in It Had to Be You and in If You Ever Leave Me...I'm Going with You!, the latter of which he also co-wrote, and he appeared in Lovers and Other Strangers.

Bologna maintained close ties to his Brooklyn relatives throughout his career. His uncle Pat, known as Blacky the Bootblack, was credited by Joseph Kennedy as a key influence in Kennedy's decision to sell his stock holdings in the summer of 1929, ahead of the October market crash. His aunt Pauline was a recognized celebrity chef who worked for figures including Jackie Gleason and Burt Reynolds.

In 2017, Bologna received the Night of 100 Stars Oscar Gala Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by actor and comedian Richard Lewis, honoring his six-decade career and recognizing his efforts on behalf of the Motion Picture Home and Hospital in 2012. His final film, Tango Shalom, was directed by his son Gabriel, who also became an actor, writer, and director. Bologna died on August 13, 2017, at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, from pancreatic cancer at the age of 82.