Ron Leibman

Ron Leibman (October 11, 1937 – December 6, 2019) was an American actor born in Manhattan to Grace Leibman, of Russian-Jewish descent, and Murray Leibman, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who worked in the garment business. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University and went on to build a career spanning stage, film, and television across more than five decades. In the late 1950s he was a member of the Compass Players, and he was subsequently admitted to the Actors Studio.

Leibman's Broadway career ran from 1963 to 1993 and included productions such as Rumors, I Ought to Be in Pictures, and Doubles. His most celebrated stage work came with Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America, in which he appeared in both Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, playing Roy Cohn. That performance earned him both the 1993 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the 1993 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play. He had previously received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance in 1970.

His film career began with the dark comedy Where's Poppa? (1970), in which he appeared alongside George Segal. He subsequently co-starred with Robert Redford and Segal in the heist film The Hot Rock (1972) and appeared as a northern Jewish union organizer in the award-winning Norma Rae (1979). Additional film credits include Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), Your Three Minutes Are Up (1973) with Beau Bridges and Janet Margolin, Zorro, The Gay Blade (1981 or 1982), Phar Lap (1983), in which he played racehorse owner David J. Davis, Auto Focus (2002), Dummy (2003), and Garden State (2004).

On television, Leibman created, co-wrote, and starred in the crime drama series Kaz (1978–79), playing a convict-turned-lawyer named Martin "Kaz" Kazinsky. That role earned him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1979. He was later nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Morris Huffner in Christmas Eve. He played Dr. Leonard Green, Rachel Green's father, in a recurring capacity on Friends from 1996 to 2004, and held a recurring role as Dr. Plepler on The Sopranos. Beginning in 2013, he voiced Ron Cadillac on the animated series Archer through 2016.

Leibman co-starred with his second wife, actress Jessica Walter, on multiple occasions. The two appeared together in Tartuffe at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in 1986 and in Neil Simon's Rumors on Broadway in 1988. They also shared the screen in the film Dummy (2003) and in a 1995 episode of Law & Order. From 2005 until his death, Leibman taught at The New School for Drama in New York City.

Leibman was married twice. His first marriage, to actress Linda Lavin, lasted from 1969 to 1981. He married Jessica Walter in 1983, and they remained married until his death. Leibman died on December 6, 2019, in Manhattan from complications of pneumonia at the age of 82.