The Joe Silver Centennial

Born 100 years ago, stage and screen character actor Joe Silver (1922-1989).

Wisconsin born Silver was only 20 years old when he made it on Broadway, 80 years ago in the 1942 revival of Tobacco Road. He was also in the original productions of Gypsy (1959), You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running (1967), Lenny (1971), and The World of Sholem Aleichem (1982).

On TV he was a regular on The Fifty Fourth Street Revue as early as 1949. He appeared on variety shows like Joey Fayes’s Frolics, The Red Buttons Show,The Red Skelton Hour,The Colgate Comedy Hour,and Woody Allen’s 1969 comedy special, and guest starred on sitcoms and dramatic programs like Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man, Kojak, Harry O,and was a regular onLee Grant’s short-lived starring vehicle Fay. He also appeared in such well-known movies as Klute (1969), The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), You Light Up My Life (1977) and Deathtrap (1982). He had a particularly good track record in horror: he’s also in Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977), and Creepshow 2 (1987).

Silver’s last film role was in Switching Channels, a 1988 remake of The Front Page that was a clear attempt to capitalize on the success of Broadcast News (1987), which starred Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds, and Christopher Reeve. His last role was the part of gangster Arnold Rothstein (1988) in the original Broadway production of Legs Diamond (1988).

Silver was suffering from liver cancer at the time of death, though the proximate case was a heart attack.