Michael Lerner, the Brooklyn-born character actor who performed a myriad of imposing figures in his 60 years in the small business, which includes monologuing movie mogul Jack Lipnick in “Barton Fink,” the crooked club operator Bugsy Calhoun in “Harlem Nights” and an angry publishing executive in “Elf” has died. He was 81.
His nephew, actor Sam Lerner, introduced his death in an Instagram submit Sunday. Sam Lerner wrote that his uncle died Saturday but did not supply even further specifics.
Neither his nor Michael Lerner’s reps quickly responded to requests for even more remark.
“He was the coolest, most confident, gifted person,” Sam Lerner wrote. “Everyone that is aware of him is aware how insane he was — in the greatest way…we’re all blessed we can continue to observe his work for the rest of time. RIP Michael, delight in your endless Cuban cigars, comfortable chairs, and infinite movie marathon.”
Born in 1941 to Romanian-Jewish mother and father and lifted in Brooklyn’s Pink Hook community, Michael Lerner started performing domestically as a teenager and into his days at Brooklyn University, the place he obtained the opportunity to participate in Willie Loman in “Death of a Salesman.” His ambitions to pursue performing skillfully crystalized when he received a Fulbright Scholarship and selected to analyze theater at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, where by he lived in an apartment with Yoko Ono for a time, appearing in her shorter movie “Smile” alongside Paul McCartney. His brother, Ken Lerner, also grew to become an actor.
Lerner moved to Los Angeles in 1969, at the urging of an agent who noticed his function at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. He started receiving forged in tv exhibits, including “M*A*S*H,” “The Brady Bunch” and “The Rockford Documents,” making his movie debut in Paul Mazursky’s “Alex in Wonderland,” alongside Charlotte Rampling. But he regarded his first substantial function to be in the television movie “Ruby and Oswald” (he performed Jack Ruby) with Brian Dennehy.
In 1981, he was forged in Bob Rafelson’s remake of “The Postman Constantly Rings Twice,” alongside Jack Nicholson, who he named one of the most generous actors he’d ever worked with, and Jessica Lange. A longtime cigar aficionado, Lerner felt out of his depths when he was requested to smoke a cigarette in a scene with Nicholson in a jail. Lerner stated he held the cigarette with each palms.
He felt extra snug playing cigar-smoking journalist and politician Pierre Salinger in “Missiles of October,” for which Jackie Kennedy at the time informed him that he’d “out Pierre’d Pierre.”
Lerner also loved doing work with John Sayles on “Eight Men Out,” in which he performed Arnold Rothstein, the criminal offense boss who conspired to take care of the 1919 Environment Series.
“Most of the time I don’t rehearse, but I do a ton of planning. Specifically for a biographical character or one of the studio heads,” he mentioned in 2016. “I did a great deal of analysis for Barton Fink and looked into Louis B. Mayer and all the moguls in Hollywood.”
Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Barton Fink,” introduced in 1991, is the movie Lerner is most remembered for.
“I had auditioned for Joel and Ethan right before, for Miller’s Crossing. So I walked into the room, as the character, and I do not say good day to any one. And I sit down guiding my desk and do this significant speech: ‘Bart! Bart! So fantastic to see you,’” Lerner claimed in 2016. “I did the monologue the way I preferred to do it and I just walked out of the home and that was it. And Joel and Ethan were being just sitting down in a corner just laughing and laughing and that was it.”
Lerner, who drew inspiration from Preston Sturges films, claimed the Coens didn’t give him much acting direction and “were a tiny anxious that I was speaking so fast” but that they let him do what he desired.
The job received him his initial and only Oscar nomination, but in 1992, the Academy Award for supporting actor went to Jack Palance for “City Slickers.”
The Coens identified as him years afterwards to do a cameo in “A Significant Gentleman.”
Lerner also explained he was frequently regarded for his turns in Eddie Murphy’s “Harlem Nights” and “Elf,” as Fulton Greenway. He also played Cher’s father in the television spinoff of “Clueless.”
In the late 1990s, he was thrilled to get a likelihood to do the job with Woody Allen on the film “Celebrity,” but it turned into a awful knowledge, he explained in a 2016 job interview.
“He is a schmuck,” Lerner reported. “And the movie’s a piece of s—-.”
Lerner also appeared in numerous even larger blockbusters above the years, together with “Godzilla” as Mayor Ebert, “X-Men: Days of Foreseeable future Previous,” as Senator Brickman, and “Mirror Mirror” as Baron.
“Those are good sections but not excellent acting roles,” Lerner stated.
And he in no way felt cheated by getting recognized as a “character actor” somewhat than a leading person. In 1999, in an interview with Cigar Aficionado, he explained, simply just, “Every job is a character part.”
