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Martin Landau
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Height
6' 3"
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Spouse
Barbara Bain (1957 - 1993) (divorced); 2 daughters
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Trivia
Was Gene Roddenberry's first choice to play Mr. Spock on the TV series "Star Trek" (1966). Ironically, when Landau later left "Mission: Impossible, " his replacement was Leonard (Spock) Nimoy.
Father of Susan B. Landau and Juliet Landau
At 17, he joined the New York Daily News as a cartoonist and worked there for five years. In 1955 he auditioned for Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio; out of 2,000 applicants only he and Steve McQueen were accepted. Made a successful Broadway debut in 1957's "Middle of the Night".
Of the 2000 performers that auditioned for Lee Strasberg's exclusive theatre school in 1955, only two were accepted: Steve McQueen and Martin Landau.
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
A star of both big and small screens, this brooding, stone-faced actor worked for a time as a cartoonist for the New York Daily News After attending New York City's famed Actors' Studio, where he counted James Dean among his close friends, Landau landed major supporting roles in such movies as North by Northwest (1959, as James Mason's henchman who stalks Cary Grant) and Cleopatra (1963, as Rufio). He found fame as a costar of TV's "Mission: Impossible" (1966-69) and "Space: 1999" (1975-77), both of which teamed him with real-life spouse Barbara Bain, whom he has since divorced. From the late 1970s through the mid 1980s Landau worked mainly as an acting teacher, while onscreen he was mired in low-budget genre films (including 1980's Without Warning a career low), until a juicy supporting role as Jeff Bridges' unlikely partner Abe Karatz in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) earned him an Oscar nomination and renewed attention. Woody Allen gave him a prime leading part as an amoral married man who has his mistress killed in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), which merited another Oscar nomination. But this being show business, Landau continued to appear in cheapies such as Firehead (1991), as well as Mistress (1992, as a has-been producer), Sliver (1993), and Intersection (1994). Then Tim Burton thought of Landau for another perfect part: that of aging Bela Lugosi in his offbeat biopic Ed Wood (1994). Landau's performance was nothing short of astonishing, and it finally earned him a Supporting Actor Oscar. He followed with City Hall (1995). |  |
