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Bob Balaban
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Trivia

Cousin of director Burt Balaban and nephew of Barney Balaban.

Played the head of NBC in both "Seinfeld" and "The Late Shift".

Son of Elmer Balaban (1909-2001) who was last surviving of seven Balaban brothers who dominated the theater business in Chicago and much of the Midwest. The Balaban boys, sons of immigrant Jewish grocery-store owners in Chicago, built city's first "supercolassal" theaters, the 700-seat Circle and the 2,000-seat Central Park. Older brother Barney became chairman of Paramount Pictures in Hollywood and wanted to pass the torch to Elmer, but he declined. Elmer has been credited with devising an early version of pay TV, based on a set-top box that would show first-run movies at home by accepting quarters.

Played Frank Bouffay, Phoebe's father, on Friends.

Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:

During the late 1970s and 1980s, producers looking for physically unprepossessing, soft-spoken intellectual types rarely got past the letter B in their casting directories. No one surpassed Balaban in those roles-and the more dispassionate or loathsome the character, the better he was. He first attracted attention in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), playing a cartographer drafted to be François Truffaut's interpreter. (He later wrote a book on the making of the film.) He also appeared in Altered States (1980), Absence of Malice Whose Life Is It, Anyway? (both 1981), Dead-Bang (1989), Amos & Andrew (1993), and Greedy (1994), to name just a few. Balaban made his directorial debut with the black comedy Parents (1989) and then helmed My Boyfriend's Back (1993).

Bob Balaban stared in:

Title Year Saw with/at: Scene On Rating
Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1980 With Peter L. at York Square 0000-00-00 *** 1/2
Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1980 With Peter L. at York Square 0000-00-00 *** 1/2
Little Man Tate 1991 With Greta and Trish 0000-00-00 ** 1/2
Bob Roberts 1992 0000-00-00 ** 1/2
Greedy 1994 Don't Remember 0000-00-00 ** 1/2
Waiting for Guffman 1996 Home with House Church 0000-00-00 *** 1/2
Three to Tango 1999 0000-00-00 ** 1/2
Cradle Will Rock 1999 At Neils with Bill, Neil and Lois Read 2000-08-12 **
Best in Show 2000 Adam Brusic at Showcase Orange 2000-10-21 ***
Ghost World 2001 Suzy at York Square 2001-09-14 *** 1/2
The Mexican 2001 at Branford Hoyts 2001-03-03 ** 1/2
Gosford Park 2001 w/ Suzy at Showcase Orange 2002-02-15 ** 1/2
A Mighty Wind 2003 at Showcase Ornage 2003-05-12 ** 1/2
Lady in the Water 2006 family on DVD 2007-02-16 ***
No Reservations 2007 family on DVD 2008-02-16 ** 1/2
Thin Ice 2011 Suzy 2012-09-09 ***
Moonrise Kingdom 2012 Suzy and Hanna 2012-11-18 ****
The Monuments Men 2014 Suzy 2014-05-11 ***
The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014 Suzy at Middletown 2014-05-24 *** 1/2
Isle of Dogs 2018 Suzy and Hanna 2018-06-22 ** 1/2
The French Dispatch 2021 Middletown with Suzy 2021-11-19 ***
80 for Brady 2023 Suzy 2023-03-19 ** 1/2
Asteroid City 2023 Suzy and Lichen 2023-07-15 *** 1/2