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Judd Hirsch (born March 15, 1935) is an American Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-winning actor, known for playing the character Alex Reiger on the acclaimed television comedy series Taxi.

Biography

Personal life

Hirsch was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of Sally (née Kitzis) and Joseph Sidney Hirsch, an electrician. Hirsch was raised in a Jewish family; his father was an immigrant from Russia. Hirsch was married to his first wife from 1957 to 1958. He married Bonnie Chalkin in 1992. Hirsch has two children, Alexander and Montana Eve.

Career

For his performance in Taxi, in 1981 and again in 1983, Judd Hirsch won the Emmy Award for Lead Actor In a Comedy Series. Hirsch went on to play the title character on the modestly successful sitcom Dear John and in 1989 won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series in a Comedy or Musical for this role. He later teamed with Bob Newhart in the short-lived comedy George and Leo. He had also previously starred for one season in the series Delvecchio, playing a police detective (1976-1977).

In motion pictures, Hirsch received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in 1980s Ordinary People. Other films in the 1980s include the 1983 drama Without a Trace, the 1984 dramedies Teachers and The Goodbye People, and the 1988 drama Running on Empty directed by Sidney Lumet and co-starring River Phoenix. In 1996 Hirsch portrayed the father of Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day, and in 2001 he appeared in the acclaimed A Beautiful Mind.

Hirsch is co-starring on the CBS Television drama NUMB3RS as Alan Eppes, father of FBI agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) and Professor Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz). Hirsch and Krumholtz also played father and son in Conversations with My Father, a Herb Gardner play for which Hirsch won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. Krumholtz credits Hirsch with jump-starting his career after Hirsch chose him during the audition process for Conversations. Other noteworthy stage performances include The Hot l Baltimore, Talley's Folley, and his starring role in I'm Not Rappaport, in which Hirsch also won a Tony Award in 1986.

Hirsch once voiced himself on an episode of Family Guy. He is seen building a nuclear bomb within a bowling ball dispenser. His two lines consisted of three words. He starred on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a pediatrician accused of murder.

Most recently, Hirsch was a guest star on the pilot episode of the NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip as the producer of an SNL-esque sketch show who goes into an on-air rant reminiscent of the 1976 film Network. On the cable TV channel TV Land, an archived coffee commercial (the channel dubs them "retromercials") from the 1960s is sometimes shown with Hirsch playing the husband, as well as a Listerine commercial from the 1970s where he played a radio DJ. In 1979, he portrayed Count Dracula on American Broadcasting Company's TV holiday film The Halloween That Almost Wasn't.

References

1. ^ "Judd Hirsch Biography". filmreference. 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
2. Ari L. Goldman (22 March 1992). "THEATER; Judd Hirsch Finds the Echoes in 'Conversations'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
3. Emmy Awards Official Website
4. Golden Globe Official Website, 1989 awards.
5. Tony Awards Official Website

External links

• Please use a more specific IMDb template. See the documentation for available templates.
• TonyAwards.com Interview with Judd Hirsch

• 1935 births
• American film actors
• American Jews
• American stage actors
• American television actors
• Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners
• City University of New York people
• Drama Desk Award winners
• Emmy Award winners
• Jewish actors
• Living people
• New York actors
• People from the Bronx
• Tony Award winners