David Spielberg

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David Spielberg (born March 6, 1939 in Mercedes , Texas , † June 1, 2016 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American actor.

Life

Spielberg was born in Mercedes Hospital and grew up in Weslaco , a small town in Hidalgo County in Texas . His father George Spielberg (1900–1988) was a businessman of Romanian descent and his mother Manuelita "Mamie" Benitez (1908–1948) was a school teacher and artist of Mexican descent; she passed away when he was nine years old.

The father and an acquaintance of the family, Consuelo, who Spielberg called "Mama Cello" by his own account, raised him and his brother Joe after their mother's death. His uncle ran a movie theater in Weslaco, which sparked his interest in films and acting at an early age. He was a big fan of old Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder films .

By 1957 he attended Weslaco High School and was a member of the football team. His following two years of military service in the US Navy , he performed at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia . During a trip to New York City , he saw his first play on Broadway : Compulsion with Roddy McDowall . This prompted him after the end of his service in 1959 to enroll as a major in acting at the University of Texas at Austin . He gained his first acting experience, but left the university in favor of a two-year acting training in New York.

On June 13, 1965, he married his first wife, the art dealer Barbara Gladstone; Their son Daniel comes from this marriage. From 1989 until his death on June 1, 2016, he was married to his second wife Janie. Spielberg died at the age of 77 from a heart attack .

Career

At the age of just under twenty, Spielberg first appeared on stage in Austin in 1959, followed by two years of acting training in New York. In 1969 he finally moved to California with almost ten years of stage experience.

His first supporting role on television was in the family series Where the Heart Is . He made his breakthrough in 1971 as Deputy DA Vernon Wahlburg with the television series The Bold Ones: The Lawyers . He was best known in 1973 on the side of Robert Urich , Anne Archer and Anita Gillette in the only one season long sitcom Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice as Ted Henderson . In the series, which was conceived as an offshoot of the film of the same name, which was nominated for four Academy Awards, the then 10-year-old Jodie Foster played his daughter. This was followed by other roles in television series such as Wheels , Law & Order , An Angel on Earth , Family Ties , LA Law - Star Lawyers, Tricks, Trials , Emergency Room - The Emergency Room as Dr. Neil Bernstein and in Starship Enterprise - The Next Century as Starfleet Commander Calvin "Hutch" Hutchinson.

Spielberg made his film debut in 1972 in the Paul Newman- produced film The Effect of Gamma Rays on Marigolds , which is based on the 1971 play of the same name by Paul Zindel, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize . This was followed by leading and supporting roles in films such as At Your Own Risk (1974), Law and Disorder (1974), Streets of the Night (1975), American Raspberry (1977), The Choirboys (1977), Real Life (1979), Philadelphia Clan (1979), Christine (1983), Remembering Is Deadly (1987), Alice (1990), Will Annie Live? (1994) and Red Ribbon Blues - Deal with Death in 1996. He had one of his last roles in a film in 2007 in the B-movie Plane Dead - Zombies on a Plane .

As a stage actor, he was an ensemble member of various Bonnie Franklin's Classic Contemporary American Play productions at the Ford Theater in Los Angeles. Between 2001 and 2002 he starred in William Inge's play Come Back, Little Sheba - which he also directed - alongside Piper Laurie and Zooey Deschanel, and in Neil Simon's play Plaza Suite alongside Bonnie Franklin, Teri Garr and John Rubinstein , directed by Marilyn Shapiro.

Filmography (selection)

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title role
The American Girls Francis X. Casey
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice Ted Henderson
Forever Damned (Miniseries) Lieutenant David Ross
Jessica Novak Max Kenyon
Laughter by Prescription (1976) Dr. David Bedford

Source: Encyclopedia of American Radio, 1920–1960, 2nd edition

Individual evidence

  1. https://www.startiger.com/l?i=17314
  2. ^ A b Harris III Lentz: David Spielberg, 77 . In: Classic Images . No. 495, September 2016, pp. 59–60.
  3. ^ The McAllen Monitor
  4. a b David Spielberg taking unusual acting lessons . In: The Paris News , September 2, 1981, p. 41. Retrieved November 2, 2016. 
  5. Sies, Luther F. (2014). Encyclopedia of American Radio, 1920-1960, 2nd Edition . McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-5149-4 .

Web links

Commons : David Spielberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files