Nehemiah Persoff 🌐

Nehemiah Persoff was born in Jerusalem and emigrated with his Jewish family to New York City in 1929. Initially working as a subway signal repairman, he served in the United States Army during World War II before auditioning for the newly formed Actors Studio in 1947, being accepted in its inaugural class alongside Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. He made his Broadway debut in 1948 in Galileo directed by Joseph Losey.

Persoff was one of the most in-demand character actors in American cinema and television, famed for playing mob boss "Little Bonaparte" emerging from a cake in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959), cab driver Leo in On the Waterfront (1954), and Barbra Streisand's beloved father Reb Mendel in Yentl (1983). For younger generations, his tender voice as Papa Mousekewitz singing "There Are No Cats in America" in An American Tail (1986) became an indelible childhood classic. Retiring to Cambria, California, he became an accomplished watercolor painter until his death at 102.