Ron Leibman (; October 11, 1937 – December 6, 2019) was an American actor. He won both the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play in 1993 for his performance as Roy Cohn in Angels in America. Leibman also won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1979 for his role as Martin 'Kaz' Kazinsky in his short-lived crime drama series Kaz.
Leibman appeared in films such as Where's Poppa? (1970), The Hot Rock (1972), Norma Rae (1979), and Zorro, The Gay Blade (1982). Later in his career, he became widely known for his recurring role as Dr. Leonard Green on Friends (1994–2004), and for providing the voice of Ron Cadillac on Archer (2013–2016).
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Early life
Leibman was born October 11, 1937, in Manhattan to Grace (née Marks), who was of Russian-Jewish descent, and Murray Leibman, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who worked in the garment business. Leibman graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Career
Leibman was a member of the Compass Players in the late 1950s, and he was admitted to the Actors Studio shortly thereafter.
Leibman made his film debut alongside George Segal in the dark comedy Where's Poppa? (1970). He then starred alongside Robert Redford and Segal in the heist film The Hot Rock (1972) and he was featured as a northern Jewish union organizer in the award-winning film Norma Rae (1979). In 1980, he starred in Up The Academy, a "gross-out" comedy set at a reform school and produced by Mad magazine. (Reaction to the film was so poor that it was repudiated by both Mad and Leibman himself, who had his name expunged from the credits and promotional material.)
His other film appearances include Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), Your Three Minutes Are Up (1973) with Beau Bridges and Janet Margolin, Zorro, The Gay Blade (1981), Auto Focus (2002) and Garden State (2004). A TV movie role of Leibman's was the 1988 legal thriller Terrorist On Trial where he plays a Jewish lawyer who defends an Arab defendant accused of a terrorist attack in Spain and extracted to Virginia. Leibman costars in that with Robert Davi as the defendant, and Sam Waterston as the prosecuting attorney. It may be found as In The Hands Of The Enemy.
Leibman won an Emmy Award, Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series, in 1979 for his convict-turned-lawyer character in Kaz (1978–79), a series which he also created and co-wrote. He was later nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for the role of Morris Huffner in Christmas Eve.
He co-starred with his second wife, Jessica Walter, in Tartuffe at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in 1986, and they co-starred again in Neil Simon's play Rumors in 1988 on Broadway. They also appeared together as husband and wife in the film Dummy (2003) and in the TV series Law & Order in the episode "House Counsel" in 1995.
Leibman received a 1993 Tony Award for his performance as Roy Cohn in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America.
He played Dr. Leonard Green, Rachel Green's overbearing father, on the sitcom Friends. He had a recurring role on The Sopranos as Dr. Plepler. In 1983, Leibman starred in the Australian film Phar Lap as David J. Davis, the owner of legendary New Zealand/Australian racehorse Phar Lap, which won the 1930 Melbourne Cup and the 1932 Agua Caliente Handicap.
In 2013, Leibman began appearing as a recurring character on the TV series Archer as Ron Cadillac, the husband to Malory Archer, voiced by his real-life wife Jessica Walter.
From 2005 until his death, Leibman taught at The New School for Drama in New York City.
Personal life
Leibman was married twice. His first wife was actress Linda Lavin, to whom he was married from 1969 to 1981. In 1983, he married actress Jessica Walter. They remained married until his death in 2019.
Death
Leibman died from complications of pneumonia in Manhattan on December 6, 2019, at age 82.
