Charles Grodin
Born April 21, 1935 — Died May 18, 2021
Charles Grodin was an American actor, comedian, and writer whose trademark deadpan — a perfectly calibrated blend of exasperation, wounded dignity, and barely-suppressed contempt — made him one of the most distinctive comic performers in American film and television. Best remembered for his chemistry with Robert De Niro in Midnight Run (1988), the most purely enjoyable buddy-comedy of the decade, Grodin built a career on the comedy of the ordinary man in the grip of forces slightly beyond his control, played with a truth and precision that set him apart from more overtly comic contemporaries.
Pittsburgh and the Path to Performance
Born Charles Grodinsky on April 21, 1935, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a Jewish family, he studied acting seriously — at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and later under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York — and worked his way through off-Broadway productions, small television parts, and theater in the 1960s. He was a seriously trained stage actor before he became a film comedian, a background that gave his work an emotional authenticity Hollywood comedy rarely demands and rarely receives.
His early film career included a nearly-landed role in The Graduate (1967) — Grodin has said he came very close to being cast instead of Dustin Hoffman — and a significant supporting part in Rosemary's Baby (1968) as the obstetrician. But his breakthrough came with the comedy The Heartbreak Kid (1972), Elaine May's sharp film in which Grodin plays a man who falls for another woman on his honeymoon. His performance — self-involved, infuriating, completely committed — announced a major talent.
Midnight Run and the Talk Show Art Form
Midnight Run (1988) is the film on which his screen legacy rests most comfortably. Paired with Robert De Niro — whose comic timing, previously untested at this level, was itself a revelation — Grodin plays a mild-mannered mob accountant being transported across the country by a bounty hunter. The running joke of the film is that Grodin's character, under seemingly endless pressure, remains mildly, pleasantly, imperturbably annoying: he is afraid of flying, asks too many questions, won't eat what's provided, observes his captor's unhealthy habits with solicitous concern. De Niro's volcanic reactions provide the fireworks; Grodin's serenity provides the comedy. Critics and audiences received the film with enormous warmth, and it is now widely considered one of the finest comedy performances of the decade.
His talk show appearances — on The Tonight Show and especially the recurring visits to David Letterman's programs — created a secondary legacy as memorable as his film work. In these appearances Grodin deployed a deadpan persona of studied affront and mild hostility toward Letterman himself, pretending to have prepared deeply for an interview, taking offense at ordinary questions, and delivering responses of such measured irritability that they approached performance art. Letterman, who loved him, described these appearances as among his favorite television events.
Did You Know?
Charles Grodin turned down the role of the Waco Kid in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974) — a role that went to Gene Wilder and became one of the most beloved in that beloved film. Grodin later said it was one of the few casting decisions he actively regretted.
Legacy
In later years, Grodin wrote books and columns, hosted a talk show on CNBC, and appeared in films including the Beethoven franchise, in which he played the long-suffering dog owner with the same exasperated dignity he applied to everything. He died on May 18, 2021, in Wilton, Connecticut, aged eighty-six, of bone marrow cancer. Tributes cited unanimously his generosity as a collaborator and the quality of his craft — Judd Apatow wrote that Grodin represented "everything you could aspire to be as an actor." His memoir It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here captures in prose the dry wit that defined his screen persona.