Michael Lerner

Michael Charles Lerner (June 22, 1941 – April 8, 2023) was an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink (1991). Lerner also played Arnold Rothstein in Eight Men Out (1988), Phil Gillman in Amos & Andrew (1993), The Warden in No Escape (1994), Mel Horowitz on the television series Clueless, Jerry Miller in The Beautician and the Beast (1997), Mayor Ebert in Roland Emmerich's Godzilla (1998), Mr. Greenway in Elf (2003), and Senator Brickman in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). Early life Michael Charles Lerner was born on June 22, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York City, of Romanian-Jewish descent, the second of three sons to Blanche and George Lerner; according to Lerner, his father "liked to think he was an antiques dealer, but in all actuality he was a junk dealer." He was raised in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and in Solon, Ohio. His younger brother Ken, nephew Sam, and niece Jenny are also actors. His older brother, Arnold, died in 2004. Career Lerner made his first television appearance at the age of 13, as a "quiz kid" on a television program hosted by a local sportscaster. He played Willy Loman in a production of Death of a Salesman at Brooklyn College, where Joel Zwick was a classmate. The experience convinced him that he wanted to be an actor, rather than an English professor. He also appeared as Sir Toby Belch in a production of Twelfth Night directed by David Mamet in Greenwich Village; William H. Macy was also in that production. After graduating from Brooklyn College, where he studied acting, he received a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a master's degree in English drama. Although his then-wife still thought he should become an English professor, Lerner still wanted to be an actor; he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study theater in London for two years, at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. While there, he lived in a flat with Yoko Ono and John Lennon. In 1968, he appeared in Ono's short experimental film Smile, among other projects. "She made a movie bare asses walking on a treadmill", he once said. "I’m in it and so is Paul McCartney. Plus I’m doing narration about censorship and all that crap." In 1968, Lerner returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and joined the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.).