After working in vaudeville in the 1930s, Jack Gilford became a regular on Broadway, starting with MEET THE PEOPLE in 1940. While primarily a stage actor, his quietly ferocious style began to show up on the silver screen, most notably in 1953's MAIN STREET TO BROADWAY. Blacklisted for his political beliefs in the mid-1950s, Gilford was limited to stage and club work, his career being revived by Stephen Sondheim’s A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (1962); he would go on to star in the 1966 film version. He continued to appear on the Great White Way, but in the '70s and '80s he was a staple in films, a sought-after character actor brilliant in works like CATCH-22, SAVE THE TIGER (which earned him an Oscar nomination), and COCOON.