Jack Albertson mini-bio: Veteran character player, long in vaudeville and burlesque, who moved to TV,
Broadway and features in middle age with considerable success. Most typically in
slightly crotchety roles, the slender, long-faced Albertson played doctors, senior
military figures, and pipe-smoking, philosophical stage manager types invariably
called "Pop" in films including "The Harder They Fall" (1956), "Teacher's Pet"
(1958), "Days of Wine and Roses" (1962) and "How to Murder Your Wife" (1965). One of
his most memorable feature performances came in the waterlogged disaster flick, "The
Poseidon Adventure" (1972), with he and Shelley Winters playing an aging couple
trying to swim their way to safety. Playing an interesting variety of often
unsympathetic types on TV, Albertson kept very busy from the late 1950s on as
seasoned cops, snoopy sniffs and harried authority figures on such blandly genial
fare as "The Thin Man" (1957-59), "Room for One More" (1962-63), "Hey Landlord"
(1966-67) and "Doctor Simon Locke" (1971).
A solid if seemingly unexceptional player for decades, Albertson finally achieved
widespread popularity and the critical acclaim he deserved late in life. He returned
to stage work occasionally and enjoyed a Tony-winning Broadway success as the harsh,
emotionally distant father in the intense family drama, "The Subject Was Roses"
(1965). Recreating the role onscreen opposite Martin Sheen and Patricia Neal several
years later, Albertson won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor of 1968. Finally, in
the 1970s Albertson won his first of two Emmys for a guest stint on the variety show
"Cher", making him one of only three actors (along with Melvyn Douglas and Paul
Scofield) to win the "triple crown" of awards (Oscar, Emmy and Tony). Albertson won
a second Emmy for the role for which he is probably best remembered, cantankerous
but good-natured garage owner Ed Brown, "the man", opposite Freddie Prinze in the
NBC-TV sitcom, "Chico and the Man" (1974-78). Brother of equally omnipresent TV
character actor Mabel Albertson.
