He also played Cher’s father in the television spinoff of “Clueless.” Lerner also said he was frequently recognized for his turns in Eddie Murphy’s “Harlem Nights” and “Elf,” as Fulton Greenway. The Coens called him years later to do a cameo in “A Serious Man.” The role got him his first and only Oscar nomination, but in 1992, the Academy Award for supporting actor went to Jack Palance for “City Slickers.” Lerner, who drew inspiration from Preston Sturges movies, said the Coens didn’t give him much acting direction and “were a little nervous that I was talking so fast” but that they let him do what he wanted. And Joel and Ethan were just sitting in a corner just laughing and laughing and that was it.” “I did the monologue the way I wanted to do it and I just walked out of the room and that was it. And I sit down behind my desk and do this big speech: ‘Bart! Bart! So great to see you,'” Lerner said in 2016. So I walked into the room, as the character, and I don’t say hello to anybody. “I had auditioned for Joel and Ethan before, for Miller’s Crossing. Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Barton Fink,” released in 1991, is the film Lerner is most remembered for. “I did a lot of research for Barton Fink and looked into Louis B. Especially for a biographical character or one of the studio heads,” he said in 2016. “Most of the time I don’t rehearse, but I do a lot of preparation. But he considered his first significant role to be in the television movie “Ruby and Oswald” (he played Jack Ruby) with Brian Dennehy. He started getting cast in television shows, including “M*A*S*H,” “The Brady Bunch” and “The Rockford Files,” making his film debut in Paul Mazursky’s “Alex in Wonderland,” alongside Charlotte Rampling. Lerner moved to Los Angeles in 1969, at the urging of an agent who saw his work at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. His brother, Ken Lerner, also became an actor. RIP Michael, enjoy your unlimited Cuban cigars, comfy chairs, and endless movie marathon.”īorn in 1941 to Romanian-Jewish parents and raised in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, Michael Lerner began acting locally as a teen and into his days at Brooklyn College, where he got the chance to play Willie Loman in “Death of a Salesman.” His ambitions to pursue acting professionally crystalized when he received a Fulbright Scholarship and chose to study theater at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, where he lived in an apartment with Yoko Ono for a time, appearing in her short film “Smile” alongside Paul McCartney. “Everyone that knows him knows how insane he was - in the best way…we’re all lucky we can continue to watch his work for the rest of time. “He was the coolest, most confident, talented guy,” Sam Lerner wrote. Neither his nor Michael Lerner’s representatives immediately responded to requests for further comment. Sam Lerner wrote that his uncle died Saturday but did not provide further details. His nephew, actor Sam Lerner, announced his death in an Instagram post Sunday. Michael Lerner, the Brooklyn-born character actor who played a myriad of imposing figures in his 60 years in the business, including monologuing movie mogul Jack Lipnick in “Barton Fink,” the crooked club owner Bugsy Calhoun in “Harlem Nights” and an angry publishing executive in “Elf” has died.
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