Lou Jacobi

Lou Jacobi, born Louis Harold Jacobovitch on December 28, 1913, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was a Canadian character actor whose stage and screen career spanned seven decades. The son of Joseph and Fay Jacobovitch, he grew up in a Jewish family and began performing at an early age, making his stage debut in 1924 at a Toronto theatre in the Yiddish play The Rabbi and the Priest, where he played a violin prodigy. Before establishing himself as a professional actor, Jacobi held a range of performance-adjacent roles, including drama director at the Toronto Y.M.H.A., social director at a summer resort, and stand-up comic working Canada's equivalent of the Borscht Belt circuit. He eventually relocated to London, where he appeared in stage productions of Guys and Dolls and Pal Joey. His film debut came in 1953 with the British comedy Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?, which also featured Diana Dors.

Jacobi made his Broadway debut in 1955 in The Diary of Anne Frank, portraying Hans van Daan, the morally compromised occupant of the Amsterdam attic where the Frank family hid. The role brought him significant recognition, and he reprised it in the 1959 film adaptation. His Broadway career continued through 1978 and included a wide range of productions. In 1961 he appeared in Neil Simon's debut play Come Blow Your Horn, playing the playboy protagonist's disappointed father. He was part of Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man in 1959 and starred in Woody Allen's Don't Drink the Water in 1966. Additional Broadway credits include Fade Out - Fade In, Cheaters, and A Way of Life.

On screen, Jacobi built a substantial filmography as a character actor. He appeared in the Billy Wilder comedy Irma la Douce in 1963 and in Penelope in 1966. In Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), he played Sam Musgrave, a married man experimenting with women's clothing. He appeared in Next Stop, Greenwich Village in 1976 and The Lucky Star in 1980. In Arthur (1981) he played a florist, and in My Favorite Year (1982) he portrayed Uncle Morty, the unsophisticated uncle of the protagonist Benjy. In Barry Levinson's Avalon (1990), he took on a semi-dramatic role as one of four Russian brothers building a life in early twentieth-century Baltimore, a part associated with the recurring comic line delivered after arriving late to Thanksgiving dinner each year. His final film role was in I.Q. (1994), in which he played the philosopher and mathematician Kurt Gödel.

Jacobi also maintained an active television presence, guest-starring on programs including Playhouse 90, Barney Miller, Sanford and Son, That Girl, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Tales from the Darkside, Love, American Style, and Too Close for Comfort. He was a regular on The Dean Martin Show. In the summer of 1976, he starred in the CBS comedy series Ivan the Terrible, playing a Russian headwaiter sharing a small Moscow apartment with nine other people; the series ran for five episodes. He was also cited as one of the voice inspirations for the animated character Dr. Zoidberg on Futurama.

In 1999, at the age of 85, Jacobi was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. Jacobi was married to Ruth Ludwin from 1957 until her death in 2004. He died on October 23, 2009, of natural causes at his Manhattan home at the age of 95, survived by his siblings Avrom and Rae Jacobovitch, both of Toronto.