Martin James Landau (; June 20, 1928 – July 15, 2017) was an American actor. His career began in the late 1950s, with early film appearances including a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). His career breakthrough came with leading roles in the television series Mission: Impossible (1966–1969) and Space: 1999 (1975–1977).
Landau earned Academy Award nominations for his performances in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) and Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood (1994). Landau is also remembered for his performances in Cleopatra (1963), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Rounders (1998), Sleepy Hollow (1999), and Remember (2015). He headed the Hollywood branch of the Actors Studio until his death in July 2017.
Landau was born on June 20, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Morris and Selma Landau (née Buchman). His family was Jewish. His father was an Austrian-born machinist who tried to rescue relatives from the Nazis.
After attending both James Madison High School and Pratt Institute, he found work at the New York Daily News. There he spent the next five years as an editorial cartoonist and worked alongside Gus Edson to produce the comic strip The Gumps. He quit the Daily News when he was 22 to concentrate on theater acting. "I told the picture editor I was going into the theater," he recalled. "I think he thought I was going to be an usher."
After auditioning for the Actors Studio in 1955, Landau and Steve McQueen were the only applicants accepted out of 500. While there, he trained under Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan, and Harold Clurman, and eventually became an executive director with the Studio alongside Mark Rydell and Sydney Pollack.
Influenced by Charlie Chaplin and the escapism of the cinema, Landau pursued an acting career. While at the Actors Studio, he became good friends with James Dean. He recalled, "James Dean was my best friend. We were two young would-be and still-yet-to-work unemployed actors, dreaming out loud and enjoying every moment ... We'd spend lots of time talking about the future, our craft and our chances of success in this newly different, ever-changing modern world we were living in."
In 1957, he made his Broadway debut in Middle of the Night. Landau made his first major film appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Landau portrayed Leonard, the right-hand man of a criminal portrayed by James Mason. Variety praised Landau's performance, writing "[His performance] creates individuality and excitement." That same year he acted in the Korean War film Pork Chop Hill starring Gregory Peck and directed by Lewis Milestone, and the black comedy The Gazebo starring Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds and directed by George Marshall. He appeared on television in Wanted: Dead or Alive S2 E19 "The Monster" as Khorba, a rogue elephant trainer who uses his elephant to rob miners of their gold. The series starred Steve McQueen; the episode first aired on January 14, 1960. In 1962, he acted in the Western film Stagecoach to Dancers' Rock. In 1963, he played a survivor of a post-pandemic world in The Outer Limits episode, "The Man Who Was Never Born". He returned for a second guest appearance on the series as scientist Richard Bellero in "The Bellero Shield". (1964). Landau appeared in two episodes of the science fiction series The Twilight Zone; as town bully Dan Hotaling in S1 E3 "Mr. Denton on Doomsday", and as Major Ivan Kuchenko in S5 E29 "The Jeopardy Room". In 1965, he played villain General Grimm in the TV series The Wild Wild West S1 E11 "The Night of the Red-Eyed Madmen". Other TV series credits during this period include Maverick, Rawhide, Wagon Train, Bonanza, The Rifleman, I Spy, The Big Valley, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and as Doc Holliday in Tales of Wells Fargo, S3 E34.
He had featured roles in two 1960s epics: Rufio in the Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed Cleopatra (1963) and Caiaphas in the George Stevens directed The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). The latter was an historical epic which cost a reported $20 million and featured performances from stars such as Charlton Heston, Max Von Sydow, Claude Rains, Dorothy McGuire, Jose Ferrer, Roddy McDowall, and Angela Lansbury. The following year he played a ruthless killer in the Western action adventure prequel Nevada Smith (1966) starring Steve McQueen.
1966–1969: Mission: Impossible and acclaim
Landau played the supporting role of master of disguise Rollin Hand in the first three seasons of the US television series Mission: Impossible, from 1966 to 1969, for which he received three straight Emmy nominations. Landau at first declined to be contracted by the show because he did not want it to interfere with his film career; instead, he was credited for "special guest appearances" during the first season. He became a full-time cast member in the second season, although the studio agreed to Landau's request to contract him only on a year-by-year basis rather than the then-standard five years. The role of Hand required Landau to perform a wide range of accents and characters, from dictators to thugs, and several episodes had him playing dual roles—not only Hand's impersonation, but also the person whom Hand is impersonating. In the series Landau acted alongside his then-wife Barbara Bain, who won an Emmy for her performances each year for all three years. He was replaced by Leonard Nimoy, playing a very similar role but not exactly the same character, for the next two seasons of the series after Landau and Bain left the show.
1970–1987: Movie and television roles
During this period, Landau took few film roles and focused on television. He acted in the film They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), The second installment in a trilogy, the release was preceded by In the Heat of the Night (1967) and followed by The Organization (1971). The film starred Sidney Poitier. That same year he starred in the Italian comedy film Operation Snafu. He then acted in the Spaghetti Western A Town Called Bastard (1971), and the neo-noir blaxploitation movie Black Gunn (1972). In 1973, Landau guest-starred in the Columbo episode Double Shock alongside Peter Falk, as twin brothers involved in the murder of their rich uncle. The episode also costarred Dabney Coleman, Julie Newmar, and Jeanette Nolan.
In the mid-1970s, Landau and Bain returned to TV in the British science-fiction series Space: 1999 produced by Gerry Anderson in partnership with Sylvia Anderson, and later with Fred Freiberger. Critical response to Space: 1999 was unenthusiastic during its original run, and it was canceled after two seasons. Landau was critical of the scripts and storylines, especially during the series' second season, but praised the cast and crew. He later wrote forewords to Space: 1999 co-star Barry Morse's theatrical memoir Remember with Advantages (2006) and Jim Smith's critical biography of Tim Burton. Following Space: 1999, Landau appeared in supporting roles in a number of films and TV series. He appeared in low-budget genre pictures, such as the science fiction films Without Warning (1981) and The Being (1983) or the horror film Alone in the Dark (1982). He appeared in roles in, among others, the TV film The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981), which co-starred Bain in their final on-screen appearance together.
In the late 1980s, Landau made a career comeback, earning an Academy Award nomination for his role in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988). He said he was grateful to the film's director, Francis Ford Coppola, for the opportunity to play a role he enjoyed: "I've spent a lot of time playing roles that didn't really challenge me," he said. "You want roles that have dimension. The role of Abe Karatz gave me that." He won the Golden Globe Award for his part in the film. In 1989, Landau appeared in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) The film is split into two stories: one humorous, one dark in nature. Landau starred in the darker storyline as Judah Rosenthal, a successful ophthalmologist who tries to prevent his mistress, played by Anjelica Huston, from revealing their affair to his wife (Claire Bloom). Landau's character confides his worries to patient and rabbi Sam Waterston as well as his mobster brother Jerry Orbach. Allen remembered of the cast that: