With his craggy features, fierce scowl and reedy baritone, Lee J. Cobb was one of the most distinctive character actors of the American stage, movies and television during five decades beginning in the 1930s.

Born Leo Jacoby in New York City's Lower East Side in 1911, Cobb made his professional stage debut in 1931 at California's Pasadena Playhouse, and his film debut in 1934 in an uncredited bit in an adventure serial called The Vanishing Shadow. As a member of the pioneering Group Theatre, Cobb acted in several of their productions during the 1930s including Clifford Odets' Golden Boy, in which he played a minor role. When that play was filmed in 1939, Cobb graduated to the key role of the father of the title character (William Holden). Although only 30 at the time, Cobb was completely believable as an older man and continued to play roles far beyond his years until his chronological age caught up with his image.

Except for the interruption of World War II, in which he served in the Army Air Force, Cobb remained constantly busy in movies of the 1940s, playing supporting roles in many major productions. His film roles got even juicier during the 1950s, reaching a peak with Oscar® nominations as Best Supporting Actor for two roles: Johnny Friendly, the corrupt union president of On the Waterfront (1954); and Father Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1958).

Among other memorable roles of the 1950s were the wise Judge Bernstein in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956); Dr. Luther, the determined psychiatrist investigating a case of multiple personalities in The Three Faces of Eve (1957); and the explosive Juror No. 3 in 12 Angry Men (1957). During that decade he appeared as a friendly witness -- as did his Group Theatre associate and Waterfront director Elia Kazan -- before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Although over the years his focus remained primarily on movies and television, Cobb appeared periodically on Broadway, where he had his greatest success in 1949 as Willy Loman, the tragic hero of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. He repeated his performance, considered one of the greatest in the annals of the American stage, in a television production broadcast in 1966. Miller, stunned by the power of Cobb's presence in his play, commented that "He stood up there like a giant moving the Rocky Mountains into position."

Highlights among Cobb's movie roles of the 1960s were the politically conservative father of Paul Newman's freedom fighter in Exodus (1960), a stalwart marshal in How the West Was Won (1962), the disapproving dad of swinging bachelor Frank Sinatra in Come Blow Your Horn (1963), a blustery big-city detective riding herd on deputy sheriff Clint Eastwood in Coogan's Bluff (1968) and the gruff owner of a burgled security company in They Came to Rob Las Vegas (1969).

Cobb's many television roles included regular roles in the series The Virginian (1962-66) and The Young Lawyers (1969). Although he continued working in television and minor motion pictures almost until his death of a heart attack in 1976, Cobb's last major Hollywood role was that of the sympathetic police detective in The Exorcist (1973).

by Roger Fristoe