Mordecai Lawner

Mordecai Lawner (June 9, 1928 – November 27, 2014) was an American actor whose career spanned film, television, and stage, including Broadway appearances between 1975 and 1986. A Manhattan resident for most of his life, Lawner graduated from City College of New York and served in the U.S. Army, stationed in West Germany during the Korean War.

Lawner's Broadway credits included Rags and Death of a Salesman. His role in Death of a Salesman came in George C. Scott's Circle in the Square production, in which Lawner played Stanley. Beyond Broadway, he maintained an active presence in Off-Broadway productions and regional theater, performing on the regional circuit into his eighties, including a production of Tuesdays With Morrie in Saratoga Springs, New York. He frequently appeared alongside his wife, actress Eugenia Thornton, who died in 2005.

On screen, Lawner appeared in Woody Allen's Annie Hall in 1977, playing the father of Allen's character Alvy Singer in a childhood flashback sequence set beneath the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster. His other film credits included Raw Deal in 1986, Ghostbusters II in 1989, and A Fish in the Bathtub in 1999. He also appeared in a television episode of Law & Order. In 2014, he traveled to Los Angeles to film a commercial for Esurance, which aired that same year.

In addition to performing, Lawner taught theater at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as at the High School of Performing Arts and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, both in New York City.

Lawner died of heart failure at Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on November 27, 2014, at the age of 86. A memorial service was held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue on December 6, 2014.