Biography
Nehemiah Persoff was an American actor and painter. Born in Jerusalem in 1919, he emigrated with his family to the United States in 1929. He attended the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York and worked as a subway electrician before serving in the US Army during the Second World War. After the war he pursued acting in New York theatre and joined the Actors Studio in 1947.
His film roles include an uncredited cab driver in On the Waterfront (1954), Little Bonaparte in Some Like It Hot (1959), Rebbe Mendel in Yentl (1983), and the voice of Papa Mousekewitz in An American Tail (1986). He appeared in numerous television series including The Untouchables, The Twilight Zone, Columbo and Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the mid-1980s he began painting watercolours.
Persoff retired from acting in the late 1990s. He died in San Luis Obispo, California, in 2022.
