Sam Jaffe

Shalom "Sam" Jaffe was born on March 10, 1891, at 97 Orchard Street in New York City — the current location of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum — to Ukrainian Jewish parents Barnett Jaffe, a jeweller, and Heida Jaffe, who had worked as a Yiddish actress in Odesa, Ukraine, before emigrating to the United States and establishing herself as a prominent actress and vaudeville star. The youngest of four children, with siblings Abraham, Sophie, and Annie, Jaffe made early appearances in Yiddish theatre productions alongside his mother. He completed his secondary education at Townsend Harris High School and earned an engineering degree from City College of New York in 1912, subsequently pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University. Before returning to acting in 1915, he spent several years as a mathematics teacher and later dean at the Bronx Cultural Institute, a college preparatory school.

Jaffe's Broadway career spanned more than six decades, from 1918 to 1979. Among his stage credits were A Meeting by the River, Cafe Crown, The Gentle People, The Eternal Road, and Izzy. In 1923, he appeared in the Broadway premiere of Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance, playing Reb Ali in a production that became notorious when its cast, producer, and theatre owner were indicted and convicted on indecency charges in May of that year.

During his years living in Greenwich Village, Jaffe resided in the same apartment building as a young John Huston, and the two formed a friendship that lasted the rest of their lives. Huston later cast Jaffe in two of his films: The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Barbarian and the Geisha. Jaffe's circle of close friends also included Zero Mostel, Edward G. Robinson, Ray Bradbury, and Igor Stravinsky.

Jaffe began his film career in 1934, first gaining attention playing the mad Tsar Peter III in The Scarlet Empress. He was forty-seven years old when he took the title role of bhisti Gunga Din in the 1939 film of the same name, and he portrayed the High Lama in Lost Horizon in 1937. His performance in The Asphalt Jungle earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1951 and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. Despite being blacklisted by Hollywood studio bosses during the 1950s on suspicion of communist sympathies, he was cast by Robert Wise in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and by William Wyler in the Academy Award-winning Ben-Hur (1959).

On television, Jaffe co-starred as Dr. David Zorba in the ABC series Ben Casey from 1961 to 1965, alongside Vince Edwards, with whom he also shared the screen in Ben-Hur through his co-star and future wife Bettye Ackerman. He made guest appearances on Batman, playing Mr. Zoltan Zorba, and on the western Alias Smith and Jones. In 1975, he appeared in the Columbo episode "Forgotten Lady" as a retired doctor murdered by Janet Leigh. Additional television work included a role in the pilot film of Rod Serling's Night Gallery and an appearance as Emperor Norton in an episode of Bonanza.

Jaffe was married to operatic soprano and musical comedy star Lillian Taiz from 1926 until her death from cancer in 1941. In 1956, he married actress Bettye Ackerman, who was thirty-three years his junior and later appeared alongside him in Ben Casey. He had no children from either marriage. Jaffe died of cancer in Beverly Hills, California, on March 24, 1984, two weeks after his ninety-third birthday. He was cremated at the Pasadena Crematory in Altadena, California, and his ashes were ultimately buried with Bettye Ackerman, following her death on November 1, 2006, at Williston Cemetery in Williston, South Carolina.