MARTIN LANDAU
Dead at age 89
Actor Martin Landau, who rose to fame on TV in “Mission: Impossible” and went on to win an Oscar for “Ed Wood,” died on Saturday. He was 89.
The Brooklyn-born star passed away at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles of unspecified “unexpected complications,” according to his publicist.
Landau was one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed character actors, inhabiting roles stretching from a master of disguise to the prophet Abraham to a wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor.
Among his most notable performances was his first major role, in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic, “North By Northwest.” In a role that was groundbreaking for the era, he portrayed the sinister henchman Leonard as obviously gay.
“Everyone told me not to do that because it was my first big movie and people would think I was gay,” he said in a 2012 interview.
“I’m an actor! I said it wasn’t going to be my last movie.”
He went on to play Rollin Hand, the “man of a million faces,” in the 1960s TV series “Mission: Impossible.” He received Emmy nominations for all three seasons in which he appeared and won the 1968 Golden Globe for best TV actor.
The longtime Actors Studio member got his first Oscar nomination for his role in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1988 film, “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” in which he played title character’s shady business partner.
He continued to garner acclaim in the 1990s with appearances in hit films such as Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Landau won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1995 for his portrayal of legendary drug-addicted horror star Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood.”
“It’s almost a love letter to [Lugosi],” Landau told the LA Times in 1994.
“Tim called me out of the blue. He said, ‘ You’ve worked with everybody, you’ve done very good movies with major directors, you’ve done tacky, rotten movies with awful directors. You have a presence and there are a lot of things that coincide [with Bela].’ That’s how he came to me.
“I was shocked. He said, ‘You popped into my head and I couldn’t get you out.’ ”
The actor went on to become close friends with Burton, starring in several more of his movies later on in his career — including “Sleepy Hollow” and “Frankenweenie.”
“Tim and I don’t finish a sentence,” Landau told the Times in 2012. “There’s something oddly kinesthetic about it. We kind of understand each other.”
Landau was also known for character turns in “Pork Chop Hill,” “City Hall,” the first “X-Files” movie, “Rounders,” “EDtv” and “The Majestic.”
Interestingly, he was also known for a role that he was offered but didn’t take: that of Spock on the original “Star Trek” television series.
“It would’ve been torturous,” he said during a 2011 episode of PBS’ “Pioneers of Television.”
“I would’ve probably died playing that role,” Landau added. “I mean, even the thought of it now upsets me. It was the antithesis of why I became an actor.”
In fact, he almost didn’t be- come an actor. When he was 17, Landau was hired as a cartoonist for the Daily News. The thenhigh-school senior worked for the newspaper for five years, working on projects including the comic strip “The Gumps.” He eventually turned down a promtion to pursue acting.
He is survived by his two daughters, Juliet Landau and Susan Landau Finch.