Jerry Adler, best known for playing businessman and family associate Herman “Hesh” Rabkin on The Sopranos, has passed away. He was 96.
But The Sopranos came quite late into Jerry Adler’s career, as he actually got his start on Broadway – well, behind the scenes – in the 1950s, serving as a stage manager on productions of My Fair Lady, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and more. His stage managerial duties would even extend to television, working on the crews of The Tony Awards, Night of 100 Stars II and NBC 60th Anniversary Celebration. Back on stage, he worked his way up, taking on the position of production supervisor for a number of shows, most notably The Apple Tree. He would even move into directing shows.
Jerry Adler didn’t really move in front of the camera until the 1990s, and it was later that decade that he joined the cast of The Sopranos. Adler would appear in around a third of the show’s episodes, debuting in the pilot and making his final appearance in season six’s “Chasing It”, his arc concluding after his longtime relationship with Tony Soprano ended. A couple of years ago, Jerry Adler said of his shift from behind-the-scenes work to being involved in major television shows, “It was a shock really. After 40 years of working backstage in the dark to be thrust into the light with people coming up to me to say hello, calling me ‘Hesh’ or ‘Howard Lyman’ [his The Good Wife / The Good Fight character]. It’s weird but at the same time quite wonderful.”
Elsewhere on television, Jerry Adler had a recurring role on NBC’s Mad About You (playing building supervisor Mr. Wicker), a few spots on Northern Exposure as a rabbi (leaning, as he did on The Sopranos, into his Jewish upbringing), supporting roles on short-lived sitcoms Hudson Street and Alrighty Already, and more. Once The Sopranos ended, Adler’s most prominent TV roles included the aforementioned The Good Wife and Rescue Me, playing FDNY chief Sidney Feinberg. He, too, had plenty of movie experience, appearing in films by Woody Allen, Sidney Lumet, Charlie Kaufman, and more.
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