Jerry Adler, who spent decades behind-the-scenes of storied Broadway productions before pivoting to acting in his 60s, has died at 96.
Adler died on Saturday, according to a brief family announcement confirmed by the Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York.
Among Adler’s acting credits include The Sopranos, on which he played Tony Soprano’s adviser, Hesh Rabkin, across all six seasons, and The Good Wife, where he played law partner Howard Lyman.
But before Adler had ever stepped in front of a film or television camera, he had 53 Broadway productions to his name – all behind the scenes, serving as a stage manager, producer or director.
He hailed from an entertainment family with deep roots in Jewish and Yiddish theatre, as he told the Jewish Ledger newspaper in 2014.
His father, Philip Adler, was a general manager for the famed Group Theatre and Broadway productions, and his cousin Stella Adler was a legendary acting teacher.
“I’m a creature of nepotism,” Adler told the website TheaterMania in 2015.
“I got my first job when I was at Syracuse University and my father, the general manager of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, called me (because) there was an opening for an assistant stage manager. I skipped school.”
After a long theatre career, which included the original production of My Fair Lady and working with the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Julie Andrews and Richard Burton, among many others, Adler left Broadway during its 1980s slump.
He moved to California, where he worked on television productions like the soap opera Santa Barbara.
“I was really getting into the twilight of a mediocre career,” he told The New York Times in 1992.
But the retirement he was contemplating was staved off when Donna Isaacson, the casting director for The Public Eye and a long-time friend of one of Adler’s daughters, invited him to audition for the movie starring Joe Pesci and Barbara Hershey.
So began an acting career that had him working consistently in front of the camera for more than 30 years.
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