Michael Lerner, 'Elf' and 'Barton Fink' actor, dies at 81
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Monday, November 4, 2024


Michael Lerner, 'Elf' and 'Barton Fink' actor, dies at 81
“I am a chameleon,” he said of his long career as a character actor in movies and television. He was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar in 1992.

by Lauren McCarthy



NEW YORK, NY.- Michael Lerner, a veteran character actor who had small but memorable roles in “Barton Fink” and “Elf,” among dozens of other film and television credits, died Saturday at a hospital in Burbank, California. He was 81.

His brother, Ken Lerner, said the cause was complications from brain seizures that Lerner suffered in November.

Lerner was a committed working actor who started out with roles in theater productions and episodic television before embarking on a five-decade film career. He appeared in “Elf” (2003), the Will Ferrell Christmas comedy, as a short-tempered and forceful publishing executive. And his role as Jack Lipnick, a volatile movie studio mogul, in Joel and Ethan Coen’s darkly comic “Barton Fink” (1991), earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor in 1992.

In an interview with The New York Times just before “Barton Fink” was released, he said he approached the role as an archetype rather than a stereotype.

“You have no idea how difficult it was for me not to play him with a cigar,” Lerner said as smoke from his cigar wafted through his house in the Hollywood Hills. “That would have been a big mistake.”

Lerner had only three scenes in the film, but made the most of them, leaning on his range to show breadth of a larger-than-life character.

“I knew I was being enormously funny, and I knew I was saying outrageous things, but to lock into that place where his ego and power reside was difficult,” Lerner said.

Lerner, who started acting at the twilight of the golden age of Hollywood, drew inspiration for his portrayal of Lipnick from a real-life mogul, Louis B. Mayer, co-founder of MGM studios. Lerner had studied Mayer throughout his life, and was writing a screenplay about the producer when he died, his brother said.

Michael Charles Lerner was born on June 22, 1941, in Brooklyn, the second of three boys born to Joseph Lerner, an antiques distributor, and Blanche (Halpern) Lerner, a secretary. After graduating from Brooklyn College, Lerner earned a master’s degree in English drama from the University of California, Berkeley, and studied for two years under a Fulbright scholarship at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Before he moved in the late 1960s to San Francisco, where he started acting at the American Conservatory Theater, he worked counters at several New York delicatessens. A memento from those days was a slightly shortened index finger, self-inflicted during the cutting of a tongue sandwich, the Times reported.

Lerner’s brother, Ken, was his only immediate survivor. His older brother, Arnold, died in 2004.

A passion for art, first-edition books, opera and hockey contributed to his versatility and range, said his brother, also an actor. “He always brought an intelligence to the characters that he played,” Ken Lerner said.

Lerner was nearly always smoking a cigar, a trademark that lent itself to several of his film roles, including as Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy’s White House press secretary, in “The Missiles of October,” a 1974 television movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis later told him that he had “out-Pierred Pierre.”

His television credits include “M-A-S-H,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Hill Street Blues” and a series based on the film “Clueless.” Among his favorite roles, his brother said, was as Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassin, in “Ruby and Oswald,” a 1978 television movie. In 2002, he appeared in London’s West End in “Up For Grabs,” a play starring Madonna. In 2014, he played a senator in the film “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”

“I would love people to know that I am a chameleon,” Lerner told The Times in 1991. “That I can play anything.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

April 12, 2023

Auctioneer admits to helping create fake works shown as Basquiats in Orlando

Brenda A. Levin, FAIA Archive donated to the Getty Research Institute

Bonhams' first Islamic and Indian sale in Paris achieves strong results

Sapar Contemporary Gallery to open 'Sofia Cacciapaglia: INCANTO' on April 13th

Phillips to offer Roger Smith's career defining, handmade pocket watch number two, a landmark achievement in watchmaking

Petworth Park Antiques & Fine Art Fair opens this May

High Museum announces Director of Communications Natali Johnson

Monique Meloche celebrates announcement of representation of Lavar Munroe and her 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship

Liberty Science Center launc es "Big Art" program with new inaugural installations by Leandro Erlich and Dustin Yellin

Inès van den Kieboom's 'Le Temps des Cerises' on view through May 20th at Tim Van Laere Gallery

JG.Limited announces History & Culture timed online auction, April 25th

Exhibition by Rackstraw Downes and Stanley Lewis now on view at Betty Cuningham Gallery

Polk Museum of Art opens scholastic art & writing awards student exhibition

Art in the Twenty-First Century: begins eleventh season of series on contemporary art

"Gabriela Vainsencher: Epic, Heroic, Ordinary" at Asya Geisberg Gallery for last 3 days

Michael Lerner, 'Elf' and 'Barton Fink' actor, dies at 81

Construction begins to restore first Christian church tower

New digital art commission by Rick Silva launches on whitney.org

New Orleans Museum of Art appoints Brian Piper as Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings

KP Projects proudly presents the new solo exhibition of Henri Dauman

Review: 'White Girl in Danger' flips the script on soap operas

Janny Ji (Wangyingzhi Ji) shares her stories of leading prominent design agencies and judging prestigious competitions

Sublimation Tumblers: The Ultimate Solution For Your Drink

Everything You Should Know About Beautyforever V Part Wigs

Tips for Choosing a Domain Name for a Website

The Limitations of Using BMI as a Measure of Health

Get the Best Promo Codes at the Top Social & Sweepstakes Casinos so You Can Redeem Winnings for Cash Prizes




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful