Allan Rich, an American actor who shot for Steven Spielberg and Robert Redford, died on August 22 at the age of 94. Born in 1926, his real name Benjamin Norman Schultz began his Broadway career in the 1940s and worked with big names, including Henry Fonda, Edward G. Robinson, Claude Raines and Jack Palance.
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In the mid-1940s, Allan Rich joined a committee calling for the release of Willie McGee, a black man convicted of rape and sentenced to death in 1951. This commitment to civil rights earned the comedian a list of “ Hollywood blacklist ”, listing the actors suspected of sympathy with the American Communist Party.
Stockbroker then gallery owner
Unable to land roles, Allan Rich became a stockbroker and then created his own brokerage firm. Having become an expert in modern art, he then opened art galleries in his name in New York and met Salvador Dali, whose lithographs he published.
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Allan Rich returns to the stage in the early 1960s for a play he co-stars with Dustin Hoffman. At the age of 45, he began a career in cinema, where he played around fifty roles and stood out for his ability to vary registers.
Alongside De Niro and Al Pacino
For his first role, Allan Rich played in the crime thriller Serpico alongside Al Pacino in 1973. In 1991, he starred alongside Robert De Niro in Irwin Winkler's The Black List , which looks back on the witch hunt having put a halt to his acting career in the 1940s. In 1994, he played a remarkable role in Quiz Show, a feature film by Robert Redford on the faking of an American game show in the 1950s. 1997, he plays a judge in Amistad , a historical film by Steven Spielberg relating a mutiny of African slaves in the 19th century.
On the small screen, Allan Rich joins the cast of several successful series including All in the Family , Kojak , New York Police Blues , Happy Days , Une nanny d'enfer or, more recently, Curb Your Enthusiasm by Larry David.
Decidedly jack-of-all-trades, the actor is also making a foray into education by providing courses to actors in training. Sharon Stone, Jamie Lee Curtis, Angelina Jolie and Rene Russo were among his most illustrious students.
