He was fired from that show twice but rehired both times before quitting. Grodin landed on network soap operas Love of Life and The Young Marrieds (on the latter, Ted Knight played his boss), then was hired by Allen Funt as a “set-up” man on Candid Camera. He made his Broadway debut in Tchin-Tchin in 1962 opposite Anthony Quinn (when he took home $107 a week) and appeared in his first movie, Sex and the College Girl, in 1964. He said he often had questions for those legendary teachers.Ĭharles Grodin with Cybill Shepherd in 1972’s ‘The Heartbreak Kid.’ Courtesy Everett Collectionĭuring the summer of 1960, Grodin performed various lead roles at the Woodstock Theater in upstate New York. He appeared in summer stock and eventually headed to New York, where he studied with Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg. Grodin was the valedictorian at Peabody High School - he was class president in each of his four years there - before he studied acting at the University of Miami and then, on a scholarship, at the Pittsburgh Playhouse School of Theatre. His father owned a store that sold supplies like zippers, buttons and hangers to cleaners, tailors and dressmakers. The youngest of two sons, Charles Grodin was born on April 21, 1935, and raised in the Highland Park section of Pittsburgh. He also was an accomplished talk show guest, adapting the persona of a peevish, picked-on person in front of Johnny Carson and David Letterman, and he starred and directed on Broadway. Playing straight man to the family dog, a lumbering and lovable Saint Bernard, Grodin was appealingly twitchy.Īnd in The Great Muppet Caper (1981), he starred as Nicky Holiday, a human suitor who rivaled Kermit the Frog for the affections of Miss Piggy.Ĭerebral, opinionated and always curious, Grodin from 1995 to ’98 hosted an issue-oriented CNBC talk show and served as an Andy Rooney-style commentator for 60 Minutes II, delivering satirical perspectives on politics and social issues. He meshed those conflicted qualities in the popular family comedy Beethoven (1992) and its 1993 sequel as a pet-averse patriarch. Self-described as “low key but high strung,” Grodin often played uptight and cranky characters who ultimately were likable.
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