Biography
This page uses content from the Bob Balaban biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Bob Balaban (born August 16, 1945 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American actor and director.
His family was a dominant force in the theatre business. His father Elmer Balaban and his uncles built some of the largest cinemas in Chicago in the 1920's. His uncle Barney Balaban was the head of Paramount Pictures for nearly 30 years in the 1940's-1960's.
He is an alumnus of Colgate University and he lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his family.
Films
One of his earliest appearances was as a young gay man in 1969's Midnight Cowboy. Among his early roles in the 1970's were in Catch-22, and as the interpreter David Laughlin in the 1977 Steven Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The 1980's were relatively quiet for him although he did appear in Altered States and 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
In the 1990's and beyond he has made many appearances in films such as Clockwatchers, Pie in the Sky, Gosford Park (which he helped to conceive along with the director Robert Altman) and Capote.
Balaban is possibly most recognizable as one of the regulars of the Christopher Guest films. He has appeared in Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration.
Most recently, he appeared as a pompous film and book critic in M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water.
He has also directed, mostly for television but his most regarded film directing credit is Parents starring Randy Quaid; a satire of the values and prejudices of Eisenhower-era America.
Television
In the 1990s, Balaban starred as Russell Dalrymple, the fictional president of NBC and eventually Elaine's love interest on Seinfeld.
He also played Warren Littlefield, another NBC executive, in The Late Shift, about the battle between Jay Leno and David Letterman for NBC's The Tonight Show.
In 1998 Balaban made a guest appearing in the sitcom Friends as Phoebe's Dad Frank Buffay in "The One With Joey's Bag".
Theatre
In 1979 he received a Tony Award nomination for his role in The Inspector General.
In 1999, Balaban directed Y2K, a play by Arthur Kopit, produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville as the "centerpiece" of the 23rd Humana Festival of New American Plays.
Books
Balaban wrote a book about his experience shooting Close Encounters of the Third Kind called Spielberg, Truffaut & Me: An Actor's Diary.
Since 2002, Balaban has been authoring a series of children's books: the McGrowl series.
Books in the McGrowl Series
- Beware of Dog
- It's a Dog's Life
- Every Dog Has His Day
- Good Dog!
- It's a Dog-Eat-Dog World
- Puppy Tales
References
External links
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
IGN RSS Feeds