Charles Grodin Biography
Born: April 21, 1935
Supporting and occasional leading actor Charles Grodin built a successful career playing low-key, uptight, and frequently wholesome comic roles, with occasional turns as an arch-villain. Whereas many funnymen have been popular for their ability to overreact and mug their way around everyday obstacles, Grodin belonged, from the beginning, to the Bob_Newhart school of wry comedy that values understatement and subtlety. Grodin learned to act under the guidance of Lee_Strasberg and Uta_Hagen before making his 1962 Broadway debut opposite Anthony_Quinn in +Tchin Tchin. Two years later, Grodin made his first film appearance in Joseph_Adler's Sex and the College Girl. Though offered the leading role in The Graduate (1967), Grodin refused, thereby providing a lucky break for Dustin_Hoffman. In 1968, he played a small but memorable role as a naive obstetrician in Rosemary's_Baby, and then tackled another villainous role as heartless navigator Aarfy Aardvark in Mike Nichols's Catch-22.
Grodin got his big break when director and Nichols's former comedy partner Elaine_May, who had been a longtime friend and mentor of the young actor, cast him in the lead of the Neil_Simon-scripted The_Heartbreak_Kid (1972), in which he played a salesman who falls in love with Cybill_Shepherd during his honeymoon. Though Steven_Spielberg wanted him to play the role of shark expert Matt Hooper in Jaws (1974), Grodin preferred to direct the play +Thieves on Broadway instead. In 1977, Grodin signed for the leading role in the film version. He also added spice as the villain in Warren_Beatty and Buck_Henry's remake of Here_Comes_Mr._Jordan (1941), Heaven_Can_Wait (1978). Since then, Grodin continued as a supporting actor in such films as The Woman in Red (1984) and The_Couch_Trip (1987).
After receiving rave reviews starring opposite Robert De Niro in the 1988 hit comedy Midnight Run, Grodin's career began to slow down. He played the long-suffering patriarch in the first two Beethoven films and turned in a memorable performance in 1993's Dave, but by 1995 Grodin had decided to switch gears, opting to host a talk show. After The Charles Grodin Show ran for several years on CNBC, Grodin later took a gig doing Andy Rooney-esque commentary on CBS's 60 Minutes II.
Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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