Martin Landau

Martin Landau (born June 20, 1928) is an American film and television actor. His career started in the 1950s, with early film appearances including a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). He played regular roles in the television series Mission: Impossible (for which he received several Emmy Award nominations) and Space: 1999. Landau received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, as well as his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988); he received his second Oscar nomination for his appearance in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). His performance in the supporting role of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood (1994) earned him an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award. He continues to perform in film and TV and heads the Hollywood branch of the Actors Studio. --- Landau was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Selma and Morris Landau. His family was Jewish; his father, an Austrian-born machinist, scrambled to rescue relatives from the Nazis. He attended James Madison High School and the Pratt Institute before finding full-time work as a cartoonist. At the age of 17, Landau started working as a cartoonist for the Daily News, illustrating Billy Rose's column "Pitching Horseshoes" and also assisting Gus Edson on the comic strip The Gumps during the 1940s and 1950s, eventually drawing the "Sunday strip" for Edson. (Some sources confuse him with comic book artist Kenneth Landau, and incorrectly claim that he drew for comic books using the name Ken Landau as a pseudonym.) At 22, he quit the Daily News to concentrate on theater acting. Influenced by Charlie Chaplin and the escapism of the cinema, Landau pursued an acting career. He attended the Actors Studio, becoming good friends with James Dean, and was later in the same class as Steve McQueen. In 1957, he made his Broadway debut in Middle of the Night. In 1959, Landau made his first major film appearance, in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. --- Landau has two daughters, Susan and Juliet, from his marriage to actress and former co-star Barbara Bain. They married on January 31, 1957 and divorced in 1993. Landau lives in West Hollywood,California.