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Actor

Alan Mandell

Born December 27, 1927 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada11 films

Alan Mandell (born Albert Mandell on December 27, 1927) is a Canadian-American actor known for playing Rabbi Marshak in the Coen Brothers' 2009 film A Serious Man. With several decades of experience as a stage actor, he is especially acclaimed as an interpreter of the works of Samuel Beckett.

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Albert Mandell was born to a Jewish family in Toronto, Ontario in 1927. He acted on stage in both Canada and the United States, building a reputation in San Francisco's theater scene in the 1950s. In 1968 he legally changed his given name to Alan to avoid being confused with noted mobster Albert Anastasia.

Mandell's association with Beckett began in 1957, with a production of Waiting for Godot at the San Francisco Actor's Workshop. He subsequently played Lucky in a production of Godot directed by Beckett himself.

Outside of Beckett, Mandell has acted in productions of Harold Pinter's No Man's Land and Arthur Miller's The Price. In 2007 he appeared as Juror #9 in a Los Angeles production of Twelve Angry Men, directed by Scott Ellis and costarring Richard Thomas and George Wendt.

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The best way into Alan Mandell's work
Hedwig and the Angry Inch posterFirst watchHedwig and the Angry Inch20017.4as Patron at restaurant (uncredited)Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an 'internationally ignored' but divinely talented…View film

Essential films

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Filmography

11 films as actor
  1. 2019Velvet BuzzsawVetril Dease
  2. 2015Addicted to FresnoArthur Lipka
  3. 2009A Serious ManRabbi Marshak
  4. 2006ShortbusTobias, the Mayor
  5. 2001Hedwig and the Angry InchPatron at restaurant (uncredited)
  6. 1996The Hip-Hop Waltz of EurydiceThe Captain
  7. 1993Midnight WitnessShaw
  8. 1988Illegally YoursJuror #8
  9. 1981MacbethScottish Doctor
  10. 1977Man from Atlantis II: The Death ScoutsGrant Stockwood
  11. 1974EnemiesDistrict Police Inspector