A TOUCH OF CLASS (REMEMBERING GEORGE SEGAL)

George Segal was one of those actors you couldn't help liking - even when he played deeply flawed people.

A Golden Globe winner, he shone in both comic and dramatic roles in the 1960s and 70s, getting a second wind in the 2000s as a regular on the sitcoms 'Just Shoot Me' and 'The Goldbergs'.

Born in New York, the youngest of four children, in 1934, he was raised in a secular household in the Great Neck area of Long Island by parents of Russian Jewish extraction.

His father was a malt and hop agent and his brother John also pursued a career in the brokerage business.

George's sister Greta passed away from pneumonia before he was born.

His great grandfather on his father's side was also a socialist who ran to be Governor of Massachusetts.

At the age of nine, Segal saw Alan Ladd in Frank Tuttle's 1942 thriller 'This Gun for Hire' with Veronica Lake and was so impressed, he felt compelled to start acting.

"I knew the revolver and the trench coat were an illusion and I didn't care," he later recalled.

"I liked the sense of adventure and control."

Segal started to learn the ukelele around this time and then the banjo - an instrument he would master.

He would record two Dixieland jazz albums in 1974 and 1987.

When he was 13, Segal's father George Snr passed away and he was sent by his mother Fannie to a Quaker boarding school, the George School in Pennsylvania where he also attended the liberal arts Haverford College.

From there, he studied performing arts and drama at the undergraduate Columbia College in Columbia University, while playing banjo in several Dixieland bands.

There was a period serving in the US Army and then he began to seriously pursue acting as a career, studying at New York's famous Lee Strasberg Studio.

Segal's first acting job was as an understudy in an off-Broadway production of 'The Iceman Cometh'.

There would be notable appearances in productions of 'Anthony and Cleopatra,' Paddy Chayefsky's 'Gideon' and Charles Dyer's 'Rattle of a Simple Man' 

He also joined an improvisation troupe called The Premise who performed at the Bleeker Coffeehouse alongside Buck Henry.

In 1956, he wed for the first time and would marry three times.

His first wife was Marion Segal Freed, a film editor who would become an associate producer on three of his films.

The marriage would last 27 years and the couple had two daughters.

Marion would later pass away in 2011 at the age of 77.

His first taste of television came in 1960 with a televised version of the Lee Strasberg Broadway production Alexander Knox's 'The Closing Door' with Kim Hunter and Dane Clark.

He also popped up on CBS's 'Armstrong Circle Theatre' - a drama anthology that showcased up and coming writers and actors - and on the channel's 'The United States Steel Hour' which did the same.

Segal was signed to a contract with Columbia Pictures to do movies and television.

In 1961 he landed his first movie role as Dr Howard in Phil Karlson's 'The Young Doctors' alongside Ben Gazzara, Frederic March, Phyllis Love and Barnard Hughes - an adaptation of Alex Hailey's 'The Final Diagnosis'.

He had a small role in Cornelius Ryan's D-Day invasion epic 'The Longest Day' with John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Rod Steiger and Sean Connery.

In Dore Schary's 1963 movie 'Act One,' he found himself acting alongside George Hamilton, Jason Robards, Jack Klugman and Eli Wallach in a poorly received adaptation of Moss Hart's Broadway play about an aspiring writer.

Richard Wilson directed him as a Confederate Civil War veteran in a lead role opposite Yul Brynner in the 1964 Western 'Invitation to a Gunfighter' which failed to ignite the box office.

However he won a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year on the back of his performance as a trainee doctor in John Rich's 'The New Interns' with Telly Savalas, Dean Jones, Barbara Eden and Stefanie Powers.

Bryan Forbes directed him, Tom Courtenay, John Mills, Denholm Elliott and Edward Fox as an American soldier detained in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in one of his most acclaimed roles in the 1965 World War Two drama 'King Rat'.

He joined Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, Jose Ferrer, Oskar Werner and Lee Marvin in Stanley Kramer's taut, critically acclaimed Oscar nominated drama 'Ship of Fools' about an ocean liner heading from Mexico to 1933 Germany which earned the distinction of being banned in Spain by General Franco's regime because of its anti fascism message.

Segal landed the role of the biology professor Nick in Mike Nicols' Oscar garlanded version of Edward Albee's acclaimed Broadway play 'Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Sandy Dennis.

Praised by audiences and critics, the part landed him a Supporting Actor nomination at the Academy Awards and would propel his movie career.

However it was Taylor and Dennis who would walk away with Best Actress and Supporting Actress Oscars among a haul of five statuettes including for Haskell Wexler's striking black and white cinematography.

There was also that year another military role as an Algerian-born paratrooper in Mark Robson's French military tale 'Lost Command' with Anthony Quinn, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale which stuttered at the US box office but was a big hit in France.

Segal played the lead in Michael Anderson's Berlin set 1966 British spy thriller 'The Quiller Memorandum' with Alec Guinness and Max Von Sydow which boasted a script by Harold Pinter.

He also appeared that year as Biff Loman in an award winning CBS TV film of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' with Lee J Cobb and James Farentino.

Roger Corman cast him as the contract killer Peter Gusenburg in his 1967 movie, 'The St Valentine's Day Massacre' with Jason Robards starring as Al Capone but it made a loss at the box office.

However the film has grown in stature over the years.

Ted Kotcheff directed him in 1967 as a lead in a poorly received TV movie remake of the thriller 'The Desperate Hours,' with the critics claiming he was woefully miscast.

His performance as George alongside Nicol Williamson's Lemmy in a Ted Kotcheff directed 1968 ABC TV production of John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' with Donald Moffat, was more enthusiastically received.

In Sidney Lumet's comedy 'Bye Bye Braverman' with Jessica Walter and Jack Warden, Segal was a PR man who attends a 41 year old friend's funeral along with other friends but while it drew mixed reviews, critics picked up on Segal's hitherto unseen flair for comedy.

In Jack Smight's enjoyable 1968 comedy thriller 'No Way to Treat A Lady' with Lee Remick and Rod Steiger, he earned a BAFTA nomination for his performance as a detective in a film adapted from a William Goldman novel.

Segal made in 1968 the Italian romantic comedy, Franco Brusati's 'The Girl Who Couldn't Say No' with Virna Lisi and starred a year later in John Guillermin's Second World War feature 'The Bridge at Remagen' with Robert Vaughn and Ben Gazzara which drew mixed reviews.

Segal joined Orson Welles, Ursula Andress and Harry Andrews in the Sidney Hayers' adventure comedy 'The Southern Star'.

During the 1960s, Segal appeared in episodes of ABC's college drama 'Channing,' its police series 'Naked City,' CBS's ' The Alfred Hitchcock Hour' and its soap opera 'The Doctors and The Nurses.'

He drew strong reviews for his performance as a philandering magazine illustrator in Irvin Kershner's 1970 comedy 'Loving' with Eva Maria Saint, Sterling Hayden, Roy Scheider and Sherry Lansing.

Segal embraced more comedic roles in Carl Reiner's well received but commercially disappointing 1970 black comedy 'Where's Poppa?' with Ruth Gordon and Herbert Ross's romcom hit 'The Owl and the Pussycat', in which he played an aspiring writer who falls for Barbra Streisand's uneducated actress, model and part-time prostitute. 

He followed that up in 1971 playing a former hair dresser and drug addict in the uneven Ivan Passer darkly comic crime film 'Born to Win' which featured a young Robert de Niro in an early role as well as Karen Black, Paula Prentiss and Hector Elizondo.

His next film, Peter Yates' 1972 crime caper 'The Hot Rock' with Robert Redford and Zero Mostel underperformed at the box office despite a William Goldman screenplay and some decent reviews.

In 1973, Alex Segal directed him and Shirley Knight in a US TV version of Ingmar Bergman's relationship drama 'The Lie' which used a translation of the same script as the Swedish original.

He was perfectly cast as a man whose infidelity haunts him in Venice in Paul Mazursky's critically lauded romcom 'Blume in Love' with Susan Anspach, Kris Kristofferson, Shelley Winters and Marsha Mason.

He stepped into a role originally intended for Cary Grant and cemented his reputation as an actor with a particular gift for comedy in Melvin Frank's hit British romcom 'A Touch of Class' which earned his onscreen love interest, Glenda Jackson a Best Actress Oscar and him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.

However Segal's next project, the Mike Hodges directed adventure movie 'The Terminal Man' stumbled badly with audiencesbwho were unwilling to climb onboard after savage critical reviews.

His work with Elliott Gould on Robert Altman's 1974 gambling comedy drama 'The California Split' was more enthusiastically received by critics but was followed up with a lead in the underwhelming Lou Lombardo 1975 Canadian thriller 'Russian Roulette' with Cristina Raines and Denholm Elliott.

Segal played Sam Spade Jr in the comedy 'The Black Bird' with Stephane Audrain.

Goldie Hawn also teamed up with him on the underwhelming Melvin Frank Western romcom 'The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox' which struggled to make its budget back.

His decision to collaborate again with Ted Kotcheff on the 1977 comedy 'Fun With Dick and Jane' with Jane Fonda and Ed McMahon paid off, scoring well with cinemagoers despite lukewarm reviews.

The film would be remade in 2005 with Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni, Alec Baldwin and Richard Jenkins but it took a critical and commercial hammering.

In James Goldstone's thriller 'Rollercoaster,' Segal took on the lead role of an investigator probing the bombing of a rollercoaster with Timothy Bottoms, Richard Widmark and Susan Strasberg but it was steamrollered out of the way by George Lucas's 'Star Wars' at the box office, making only s modest profit.

Ted Kotcheff directed him again in the critically acclaimed 1978 black comedy mystery 'Who Is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe?' with Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Morley, Jean Rochefort, Philippe Noiret and Jean-Pierre Cassel.

In Melvin Frank's 1979 comedy 'Lost and Found,' Segal was reunited with Glenda Jackson but the magic of 'A Touch of Class' had deserted them and the film was lambasted by the critics and flopped in cinemas.

In 1980, Segal returned to the small screen in Marcel Camus' German Western miniseries 'Mein Freund Winnetou' with Pierre Brice and Siegfried Rauch.

Segal co-starred in Natalie Wood's last release, Gilbert Cates' 1980 comedy 'The Last Married Couple In America' with Dom De Luise, Valerie Harper and Richard Benjamin which failed to woo audiences.

In Michael Schulz's 1981 comedy drama 'Carbon Copy,' he played the father of Denzel Washington in a RKO Pictures movie also starring Susan Saint James and Jack Warden that did not set the box office alight.

Max Fischer directed Segal in the underwhelming 1982 Canadian thriller 'Kiling 'Em Softly' in a role originally earmarked for Peter O'Toole with Irene Cara.

He earned good reviews as an American tourist duped into taking part in a mock trial in Switzerland in the 1982 George Schaefer HBO thriller 'Deadly Game' with Trevor Howard, Connie Booth and Robert Morley.

In 1983, he married Linda Rogoff after meeting her in Carnegie Hall while playing the banjo with his band.

Rogoff at one stage managed The Pointer Sisters and they remained together until she passed away in 1996.

That year, he joined Shelley Hack in Bill Persky's 1983 CBS TV movie 'Trackdown: Finding the Goodbar Killer' - a sequel to the hit 1977 Diane Keaton crime film 'Looking for Mr Goodbar' - about the police investigation into the rape and murder of a Manhattan school teacher.

Segal got the chance to play Robin Hood in CBS's comedy TV movie 'The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood' with Roddy McDowall, Morgan Fairchild, Tom Baker, Roy Kinnear and Janet Suzman which was a misfire with some critics.

James Dearden directed Segal in a 1984 HBO Berlin set sci-fi thriller 'The Cold Room' with Amanda Pays, Renee Soutendijk, Warren Clarke and Anthony Higgins.

In 1985, Segal played the Mafia indebted manager of John Lithgow's punch-drunk boxer Harlan 'Mountain' McLintock in a shortlived Broadway production of Rod Serling's teleplay 'Requiem for a Heavyweight'. 

CBS aired in 1985 the Michael Tuchner directed TV movie 'Not My Kid' with Stockard Channing, Viveka Davis and Tate Donevan about families intervening to get therapy for teenage drug addicts.

There was further disappointment at the box office in 1985 when the Burt Reynolds directed Elmore Leonard thriller 'Stick' with Reynolds, Candice Bergen and Charles Durning tanked.

In 1987, Segal was the lead in the shortlived CBS sitcom 'Take Five' about a PR man in a midlife crisis but it didn't make it past two episodes.

His next TV venture was as the alcoholic private eye Daedelus Patrick Murphy in ABC's 'Murphy's Law' in 1988 with Maggie Han and Josh Mostel but it was axed after one season.

Terence Young directed him, David Carradine, Lauren Hutton and Franco Nero in the 1988 Italian thriller 'Run for Your Life'.

Across the Atlantic in the UK, Bryan Forbes directed him again in the 1989 ITV espionage miniseries 'Endless Game' with Albert Finney, Ian Holm and Kristin Scott Thomas which aired on the Showtime network in the United States.

He was the feckless, married father of Kirstie Alley's baby Mikey in Amy Heckerling's 1989 comedy hit 'Look Who's Talking' with John Travolta, Olympia Dukakis and the voices of Bruce Willis and Joan Rivers. 

There was a brief appearance in the third film of the series, Tom Ropelewski's 'Look Who's Talking Now' in 1993 which made a loss after a frosty critical reaction.

While the first 'Look Who's Talking' film triumphed at the box office in spite of mixed reviews, Rocky Lang's comedy 'All's Fair' with Sally Kellerman and Lou Ferringo about male and female business executives taking part in a paintball showdown died quickly at the box office after terrible reviews.

The 1990s saw Segal appear in TV shows like CBS's 'Murder She Wrote' with Angela Lansbury, 'Burke's Law' with Gene Barry, as himself in HBO's talk show satire 'The Larry Sanders Show' with Garry Shandling, the syndicated surfing detectives show 'High Tide' with Rick Springfield, as Tea Leoni's dad in the NBC sitcom 'The Naked Truth' alongside Mary Tyler Moore as her mum, in Tracey Ullman's HBO sketch show 'Tracey Takes On..' and as the magazine publisher dad of Laura San Giacomo in the hit NBC sitcom 'Just Shoot Me' with David Spade which ran for seven seasons.

On the cinema screen, he played a comedy writer in Mark Rydell's 1991'musical comedy showbiz drama 'For the Boys' with Bette Midler, James Caan and Bud Yorkin.

While the film drew mixed reviews and struggled to resonate with audiences, Midler earned a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy and an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Dixie Leonard, a 1940s singer sent to entertain the US troops.

There was another critical and commercial dud with the 1991 romcom from first time director Pablo Ferro 'Me Myself and I,' in which his character is romanced by JoBeth Williams' schizophrenic.

Segal popped up as a Lieutenant in the 1993 Dolph Lundgren action movie 'The Joshua Tree' (also known as 'Army of One') - a rare foray outside of comedy with director Vic Armstrong.

The following year he joined William Forsythe in another underwhelming action movie about a CIA assassin, Joseph Merhi's 'Direct Hit'.

In Lee Grant's 1994 NBC TV movie 'Seasons of the Heart,' Segal turned in an acclaimed performance alongside Carol Burnett as grandparents who unexpectedly find themselves raising their grandson in a drama also starring Malcolm McDowell.

Grant also directed him in another NBC musical comedy TV movie that year 'Following Her Heart' with Ann-Margret and Brenda Vaccaro about a widow who rediscovers a zest for life on a tour of Nashville's Grand Old Opry.

Peter Bogdanovich directed him in the short film 'Song of Songs' which was based on Sandro Botticelli's painting 'Primavera' as part of Showtime's art inspired anthology series 'Picture Perfect' which also featured short films by John Boorman, Norman Jewison, Jonathan Kaplan, Joe Dante and Bob Rafelson.

Gus Van Sandt cast him as a conference speaker in an uncredited cameo in the critically acclaimed, dark 1995 comedy 'To Die For' with Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix, Illeana Douglas and Casey Affleck.

He appeared in the 1995 critically derided Guy Ferland erotic thriller 'The Babysitter' with Alicia Silverstone and JT Walsh and as a US Senator in Conrad Janis' feeble direct to video conspiracy thriller 'The Feminine Touch' with Paige Turco and Dirk Benedict.

Segal joined Eric Roberts, Gregory Harrison, Margaret Cho, Lee Grant, Marlee Matlin, Bruce Davison, Roddy McDowall and Olivia Newton John in Randal Kleiser's 1996 drama 'It's My Party' - one of the first Hollywood features to directly tackle AIDS in a story about a young gay executuve's decision to throw a party for his family and friends before committing suicide.

David O Russell directed him and Mary Tyler Moore as the neurotic, adoptive Jewish parents of Ben Stiller's character in the critically acclaimed indie comedy 'Flirting With Disaster' with Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin, Lily Tomlin and Alan Alda.

Stiller would cast him as Matthew Broderick's father in the uneven Jim Carrey hit comedy 'The Cable Guy' with Leslie Mann, Jack Black and Owen Wilson.

He was reunited with Barbra Streisand who directed him in the role of Jeff Bridges' best friend in the well received 1996 romcom 'The Mirror Has Two Faces' which she also starred in alongside Lauren Bacall in an Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning supporting role, Brenda Vaccaro, Pierce Brosnan and Mimi Rogers.

Segal married for a third time in 1996  - wedding Sonia Schultz Greenbaum, a former classmate from the George School.

There was a role in Pen Desham's well received TNT TV movie 'Houdini' with Johnathon Schaech, David Warner, Rhea Perlman, Mark Ruffalo and Paul Sorvino in which he played a sleazy talent agent.

Segal played Lee Eastman, the showbusiness attorney father of Linda McCartney, in Armand Mastroianni's 2000 CBS TV movie 'The Linda McCartney Story' with Elizabeth Mitchell and Gary Bakewell which drew tepid reviews.

There was a stint in 2001 as Serge on London's West End opposite Paul Freeman and Richard Griffiths in Yasmina Reza's acclaimed comedy 'Art' - having performed the part two years before on Broadway.

After a nine year break from feature films, Segal appeared as s rabbi in Chris Terrio's well received indie portmanteau film 'Heights' about 24 hours in the life of New Yorkers with Glenn Close, Elizabeth Banks, James Marsden, Jesse Bradford, John Light and Isabella Rossellini.

In 2007, he joined Richard Benjamin and Len Cariou in the American premiere of Tom Stoppard's 'Heroes' - an adaptation of Gerald Sibleyras' 'Le Vent Des Peupliers' - at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles.

Charlie Picerni directed Segal, Peter Falk, Rip Torn and Bill Cobbs in the so-so 2007 comic road movie 'Three Days to Vegas' about four retired friends trying to prevent one of their daughters from marrying in the casino city.

Segal turned up in 2009 as a jazz singer in Roland Emmerich's blockbuster '2012' with John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, Thandiwe Newton, Oliver Platt and Woody Harrelson - a huge hit which the critic Roger Ebert dubbed "the mother of all disaster movies".

During the 2000s, Segal appeared in episodes of NBC's 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,' ABC's 'Grey's Anatomy' spin-off 'Private Practice,' its fantasy mystery 'Pushing Daisies' with Anna Friel and its courtroom comedy drama 'Boston Legal' with William Shatner and James Spader, Fox's sitcom 'The War at Home' and HBO's Hollywood satire 'Entourage'.

His final stage role was an LA Theatre Works production in 2008 alongside Richard Schiff in Bob Clyman's 'Secret Order' at the Skirball Cultural Centre in Los Angeles which dealt with power games in the world of medical research.

Segal joined Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal in the 2010 Ed Zwick romcom drama 'Love and Other Drugs' about a love affair between a pharmaceutical sales rep and a Parkinson's Disease patient with Hank Azaria, Judy Greer, Oliver Platt, Jill Clayburgh and Josh Gad.

Zwick's film divided critics but charmed audiences, performing well in cinemas.

There was a two season stint in 2011-12 as the father of Jonathan McClain's successful businessman in the Florida retirement community sitcom 'Retired at 35' on TV Land with Jessica Walter.

He landed the part of the Grandad in ABC's nostalgic sitcom 'The Goldbergs' with Wendi McLendon-Covey, Jeff Garlin, Sean Giambrone, Troy Gentile and Hayley Orrantia which introduced him to a new generation of fans as the track suit wearing Pops Solomon.

He also joined a voice cast that included Chloe Grace Moretz, James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, James Marsden, Lucy Liu, Oliver Platt and Beau Bridges in the Oscar nominated 2014 English language version of Isao Takahata's acclaimed Japanese Studio Ghibli animé 'The Tale of the Princess Kaguya'.

Segal's last big screen role was as a doctor in Michael Radford's 2014 comedy drama 'Elsa and Fred' with Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer, Marcia Gay Harden, Chris Noth and Scott Bakula but it failed to connect with audiences or critics.

He focused instead on his regular role on 'The Goldbergs' but passed away in March 2021 after complications from heart bypass surgery in Santa Rosa.

A special tribute reel was aired during his final episode for 'The Goldbergs' in April 2021, ending with the quote: "If you just believe in yourself, like I do, you can't lose."

It was a good summary of Segal's career which had more than its fair share of ups and downs.

Amid the box office successes and the misfires, the affection which audiences had for him endured and it will continue to do so for many years to come.

(George Segal passed away at the age of 87 on March 23, 2021)