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Getting to know ... Al Waxman

Al Waxman - Biography:

Al Waxman Ubiquitous Canadian actor/director Al Waxman was not always cast in leading roles, but he was invariably given special billing, usually with a box around his name in the opening credits. This honor is well-deserved; in show business since the 1950s, Waxman labored long and hard to make a name for himself. During his first Hollywood stay in the 1960s, Waxman worked as a waiter and bouncer between engagements. He was fired from his job as a short-order cook at Barney's Beanery after sneaking extra portions of food to his fellow starving artists. Returning to Canada in the late 1960s, Waxman directed several intriguing but unsuccessful low-budget films, among them Tviggy (the story of a Jewish model), The Crowd Inside, and the soft-core "My Pleasure is My Business". He finally struck gold in the role of blue-collar blowhard Larry King on the popular 1970s Canadian sitcom King of Kensington, which clocked in at 111 episodes, 65 of which were syndicated to the U.S. On the strength of this series, Louis Malle cast Waxman as ever-grinning cocaine dealer Alfie in Atlantic City (1980). He landed the role of Lieutenant Samuels in the pilot of Cagney & Lacey (1981), featuring Loretta Swit and Tyne Daly as the two female detectives. For the series, which ran from 1982 to 1988, Meg Foster took over from Swit as Cagney but was soon replaced by Sharon Gless. It was Cagney's troubles, ranging from alcoholism to date rape, that led her to the shoulders of Lacey and Lieutenant Samuels. The series won more than a dozen Emmy awards - and a strong gay following from those who saw the single Cagney as a pin-up. The authenticity of Waxman's performance was recognised when the New York City Police Department made him an honorary lieutenant in 1986. Eleven years later, the actor won a Gemini award as Best Actor for his role as Jack Adams in the Canadian television hockey drama Net Worth (1995). In 1998, he received Canada's prestigious Earle Grey Award for lifetime achievement. Waxman's other major television roles were as Coach Lloyd Gorman during the first year of another hockey drama, Power Play (1998), and Judge Othneil, a celestial being in the fantasy series Twice in a Lifetime (1999-2000). He also had parts in internationally screened programmes such as Murder, She Wrote (1989) and Due South (1997) and the television films Gotti (1996) and Naked City: a killer Christmas (1998), and played General Westcott in I Still Dream of Jeannie (1991), a revival of the 1960s fantasy series. He directed the series The Littlest Hobo (1979) and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985). On stage, he acted in Britain with Wimbledon Theatre's repertory company and was a regular in the Canadian theatre, acclaimed for his Willy Loman in the Stratford Festival production of Death of a Salesman (1997). Last year he directed The Diary of Anne Frank at the Stratford Theater Festival, and this year was to play Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. His 1999 autobiography was entitled That's What I Am. Albert Samuel Waxman, actor, writer, producer and director: born Toronto 2 March 1935; OC 1997; married 1968 Sara Shapiro (one son, one daughter); died Toronto 17 January 2001.

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