Lou Jacobi

Hefty, balding character actor, sometimes mustachioed, whose explosive manner has been instantly recognizable on many years of TV comedy. Typically cast in ethnic roles as Jews, Italians, or Russians, Jacobi has also kept busy in TV commercials, most notably his Clio Award-winning work in a series of Hertz advertisements. He has also had a very active theater career, with roles in such plays as "Spring Thaw" (1949), "Come Blow Your Horn" (1961), "Don't Drink the Water" (1966), "The Sunshine Boys" (1974) and "Cheaters" (1978). Although his most memorable early film role was as Mr. Van Daan, opposite Shelley Winters as one of the attic-confined Dutch Jews in "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959), Jacobi has most often played alternately overbearing or put-upon men in such comedies as "Arthur" (1981) and "My Favorite Year" (1982), and such family sagas as "Avalon" (1990).