Ned Eisenberg

Ned Eisenberg (January 13, 1957 – February 27, 2022) was an American actor born in the Bronx, New York, where he grew up in the Riverdale neighborhood. He attended Riverdale Junior High School, graduating in 1972, and subsequently enrolled at the Performing Arts High School, a subsidiary of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School. Rather than pursuing formal academic training, Eisenberg described his approach as "street-style" acting, developing his craft through experience and supplementing it with jazz-dance classes under instructor Betsy Haug.

Eisenberg's screen career began with supporting appearances in films including The Exterminator (1980), The Burning (1981), and Slayground (1983), before he took a leading role in Key Exchange (1985). That same period brought him a major tour of Brighton Beach Memoirs and guest appearances on television series such as The Equalizer and Miami Vice. He went on to star in the television comedy The Fanelli Boys alongside Christopher Meloni and Joe Pantoliano. In 1987, he cofounded the Naked Angels Theatre Company with longtime friend Fisher Stevens.

His film work continued through the 1990s and 2000s with roles in Moving Violations (1985), Air America (1990), Last Man Standing (1996), Primary Colors (1998), A Civil Action (1998), Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998), and Clint Eastwood's Academy Award–winning drama Million Dollar Baby (2004). He portrayed photographer Joe Rosenthal in Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and later appeared in Experimenter (2015). On television, he joined the NBC series Law & Order in 1997, frequently playing a defense attorney, and developed a recurring role as defense attorney Roger Kressler on the spinoff Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 1999, he appeared in the first-season Sopranos episode "Denial, Anger, Acceptance" as the character Ariel.

On Broadway, Eisenberg performed across a span of more than two decades, from 1991 to 2017. His stage credits include Six Degrees of Separation, Golden Boy, Awake and Sing!, Rocky, and The 24 Hour Plays 2003. His work in Awake and Sing! earned him a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in 2006.

Eisenberg was married to actress Patricia Dunnock and had one son. In the final two years of his life, he continued working while privately managing diagnoses of cholangiocarcinoma and uveal melanoma, doing so in order to maintain medical coverage and financial stability for his family. He died at his home in Jackson Heights, Queens, on February 27, 2022, at the age of 65.