Josip Elic

Josip Elic, born Joseph Elich Jr. on March 10, 1921, in Butte, Montana, was an American actor whose career spanned stage, television, and film across several decades. The son of Croatian immigrants Martha and Joseph Elich, he grew up alongside siblings John and Helen in the East Side neighborhood of Butte known as "Cabbage Patch." At sixteen, he went to work in a Montana copper mine before enlisting in the U.S. Navy. After his discharge in 1945, he spent a brief period on Wall Street before moving to New York City to pursue acting, using the G.I. Bill to fund his training at an acting school. Around the age of thirty, he formally changed his name to Josip Elic as a tribute to his Croatian heritage.

Elic's entry into show business came through building sets for a summer stock company in upstate Connecticut, which eventually led to performing in off-Broadway productions. Among these was a 1954 production of Threepenny Opera, in which he appeared alongside Bea Arthur and John Astin. His Broadway career ran from 1955 to 1965 and included credits in Kelly, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, and Threepenny Opera.

In 1956, the six-foot-three Elic made his first television appearance on the NBC anthology series Kraft Television Theatre, in an episode directed by William A. Graham and featuring Rance Howard and Joe Mantell. A series of minor television and film roles followed, along with a notable presence in television advertising, where he became one of the first character actors to headline commercials in a capacity previously associated with leading men. He gained broader national recognition through two appearances on The Twilight Zone, one of which was the episode "The Obsolete Man," opposite Burgess Meredith.

His most widely recognized screen performance came in Miloš Forman's 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which he played Bancini, a confused mental patient. Though the role contained few lines, one of its most memorable moments arose from an improvisation during a basketball scene involving Jack Nicholson, who climbed onto Elic's shoulders during filming. Elic's screen work continued through the late 1970s before tapering off, and his final on-screen role came in Ridley Scott's 1989 action film Black Rain. Even after stepping away from film and television, he remained active in New York's acting community and made regular appearances at fan conventions.

In his later years, Elic suffered a fall in his New York apartment and temporarily stayed with actress Lee Meredith and her husband Bert before relocating to the Brookdale Senior Living residence in Paramus, New Jersey. He died on October 21, 2019, at the age of 98, from complications related to that fall.