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Alan Arkin: New York
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Born in New York City, Alan Arkin started his career in the entertainment industry as a member of a folk-singing group called The Terriers. He then joined Chicago's Second City improv group which prepared him well for his stage debut in Carl Reiner's Enter Laughing. This project garnered Arkin rave reviews as well as a coveted Tony Award.
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Arkin started out the 90s with a bang acting in three features, including Tim Burton's dark satire "Edward Scissorhands" (1990), before contributing to the ensemble tour de force "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992). He starred as a bitter former baseball player in TNT's "Cooperstown" (1993) and delivered a vivid supporting turn as Nick Nolte's neighbor in "Mother Night (1996). In 1997, he appeared in two very different projects, "Grosse Pointe Blank", which featured him in some hilarious scenes as hitman John Cusack's psychiatrist, and the sci-fi "Gattaca,†playing a detective tracking a killer. The Oscar-nominated foreign-film "Four Days in September" (1997) cast him as the American ambassador to Brazil, kidnapped by rebels in 1969, and he followed that with "The Slums of Beverly Hills" (1998) opposite Marisa Tomei. Arkin ... returned to the New York stage as co-author and co-star of "Power Plays" (1998), working with son Tony, Elaine May and May's daughter Jeannie Berlin. He subsequently portrayed a judge in the ensemble drama "100 Centre Street" (A&E, 2001-02), which marked Sidney Lumet's return to the small screen.
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Alan Wolf Arkin was born on March 26, 1934, in New York City. While in high school, Alan moved with his family to Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles State College, but returned to New York after college to begin a career as a singer/songwriter before turning to acting.
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Arkin was born on March 26, 1934 to a Jewish family in New York City. His maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Odessa, and had fled the city years earlier due to rampant persecution of the Jewish population. The family moved to Los Angeles soon after Alan’s birth, where his father David worked as a set designer and art teacher. Unfortunately, like many liberal Jews in Hollywood in the early 1950s, David and Alan’s mother Beatrice were accused of being Communists during the infamous Red Scare, the product of rampant fear of Communist encroachment coupled with not-so-subtle anti-Semitism. David lost work due to his refusal to answer questions about his political affiliations.
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In the forward for the Second City book, Arkin revealed that he was reluctant to head to Chicago. He credits his first paying job as an actor was in St. Louis, when he ran into a fellow who was starting up the Second City theater troupe in Chicago, and said to Arkin that if he were ever to come to Chicago, that he would hire him. Arkin halfheartedly agreed, thinking that it was just a joke and headed back to New York for another year as a struggling actor. Arkin called the man and asked if a position was still open. The man confirmed it and Arkin headed to Chicago, thinking that his life was over. But when he joined Second City, Arkin said that he realized he was with a group of people that fostered the kind of acting that he was involved in, and protected him from the fear of the world.
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Born in New York, Arkin studied at Los Angeles City College and first entered show business as a member of the folk group The Tarriers. Arkin attracted more attention as a founding member of Chicago's improvisational revue, Second City. This led to his first part on Broadway, the lead in Carl Reiner's play Erter Laughing in 1963, for which he became an overnight success and won a Tony Award. He later appeared o Murray Schisgal's hit Luv and began directing, including the off-Broadway production of Little Murders, as well as the 1971 screen version.
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