Jerry Adler, who spent a long time backstage on Broadway earlier than reinventing himself in his 60s as a tv actor, most memorably as Herman “Hesh” Rabkin on HBO’s “The Sopranos” and Howard Lyman on CBS’ “The Good Spouse,” has died. He was 96.
Adler died Saturday in New York, the place he lived, in response to his household. A trigger was not disclosed.
On “The Sopranos,” Adler performed Hesh, a Jewish music producer and mortgage shark with lengthy ties to the Soprano crime household. Not a member of Tony Soprano’s internal crew however shut sufficient to be trusted, he was one of many few who might converse bluntly to James Gandolfini’s mob boss with out concern of reprisal. Adler remained with the sequence from its 1999 pilot by way of the ultimate season in 2007, a gradual presence on the margins of Tony’s world.
Hesh turned up in a number of the present’s most memorable arcs, serving to Tony’s protégé Christopher and his girlfriend Adriana of their ill-fated stab on the music enterprise, becoming a member of Tony in a horse-racing enterprise and, within the last season, watching their relationship bitter when the boss pressed him for a big mortgage.
Steven Van Zandt, Adler’s “Sopranos” castmate and guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Avenue Band, paid tribute to Adler on social media: “Such an honor working with you. Journey effectively my buddy.”
Whereas “The Sopranos” launched plenty of beforehand little-known actors to on the spot fame, Adler’s rise was uncommon, the end result of greater than 4 a long time spent behind the scenes on Broadway earlier than he ever stepped in entrance of a digicam.
A Brooklyn native born Feb. 4, 1929, Adler started his profession as an assistant stage supervisor in 1950 on “Gents Desire Blondes” and went on to work as stage supervisor, manufacturing supervisor or supervisor on greater than 50 reveals, together with the unique “My Honest Girl,” Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming” and “The Apple Tree,” directed by Mike Nichols. He additionally directed a number of productions.
By the Eighties, he had moved to Los Angeles to be nearer to his kids and located regular work in daytime tv as a stage supervisor. It wasn’t till his early 60s that appearing entered the image. After debuting on CBS’ “Brooklyn Bridge” in 1991, Adler discovered regular movie and TV work as a personality actor by way of the Nineteen Nineties, showing in Joe Pesci’s “The Public Eye” (1992) and Woody Allen’s “Manhattan Homicide Thriller” (1993).
After “The Sopranos,” Adler remained a well-recognized presence on tv. He joined “The Good Spouse” in 2011 as Howard Lyman, a blustery, out-of-touch companion on the Lockhart/Gardner regulation agency. What was initially meant to be a one-off visitor spot become a recurring position throughout six seasons, with Adler reprising the half in “The Good Combat” in 2017 and 2018.
Adler additionally recurred on FX’s “Rescue Me” as hearth chief Sidney Feinberg and appeared in sequence starting from “Northern Publicity” and “Mad About You” to “Clear” and “Broad Metropolis.” His movie credit embrace “In Her Footwear” (2005), “Synecdoche, New York” (2008) and “A Most Violent 12 months” (2014).
Adler returned to Broadway as a performer late in life, showing in Elaine Might’s 2000 comedy “Taller Than a Dwarf” and Larry David’s “Fish within the Darkish” in 2015. Adler’s final display screen credit score got here within the 2019 revival season of “Mad About You.” In 2024, he revealed a memoir, “Too Humorous for Phrases: Backstage Tales From Broadway, Tv, and the Films,” reflecting on his uncommon path by way of present enterprise.
On Instagram, “Sopranos” co-star Michael Imperioli, who performed Christopher, praised Adler as “a unbelievable actor and the kindest of human beings. He introduced a lot humor, intelligence and reality to the position of Herman ‘Hesh’ Rabkin and was one in all my favourite characters on ‘The Sopranos.’ I cherished working and spending time with Jerry. A real class act.”
Survivors embrace his spouse, Joan Laxman, whom he married in 1994, and his daughters, Alisa, Amy, Laura and Emily.
