Jerry Adler, at the funeral of James Gandolfini. Credit Line: Mike Coppola / Getty Images / Profimedia
Actor Jerry Adler, known for the interpretation of Herman “Hesh” Rabkin in the series “Soprano Clan”, died at the age of 96, the BBC announced.
Although he found his fame on the small screen, Adler only began to play in the early 1960s-when he was preparing to retire from an illustrious career on Broadway.
He worked with celebrities like Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury and Richard Burton for over three decades in the industry.
The actor born in Brooklyn “quietly died on Saturday,” his family representatives said, according to Associated Press and Fox News.
Adler worked as a stage director, supervisor and director at over 50 productions on Broadway – after giving him the first job by his father, while he was at the university.
He directed the scene for the original production of 1956 of the song “My Fair Lady”, with Julie Andrews, at that time 20 years old, and for the 1969 song “Coco”, in which Kathryn Hepburn played the founder of the Chanel fashion house.
He continued to supervise the original production of the beloved Annie musical in 1977 and the 1980 Camelot theater play, with Richard Burton in the lead role.
He walked for the first time in the world of television in the 1980s and early 1990s, directing a series of productions, including several Tony prizes.
But only when he was preparing to retreat, Adler started playing, after a phone call from a friend who distributed the role for the 1992 film, The Public Eye.
He then has played in other movies, including in Manhattan Murder Mystery and in the Geth Murder's Getting Away.
But he found his fame because of his role in the HBO series acclaimed “Soprano Clan”-as a counselor of Tony, the head of Mafia, played by James Gandolfini, and his old friend of his father.
Later, he took recurrent roles in The Good Wife series and The Good Fight Spin-off, as Howard Lyman, and in the Rescue Me series, in the role of the Fire Station in New York, Sidney Fainberg.
Other remarkable roles included rabbi Alan Schulman in the Northern Exposure show on CBS and Mr. Wicker MAD in the MAD ABOUT YOU on NBC.
He also had unique appearances in emblematic American series, such as Curb Your Enthusiasm and The West Wing.
Adler returned to Broadway as an actor – first in the song “Taller Than a Dwarf” in 2000 – and then in “Fish in the Dark” of 2015 – thus ending the circle of his career.
