David Sheiner, the familiar character actor who portrayed one of the poker players alongside Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the 1968 big-screen adaptation of The Odd Couple, has died. He was 98.
Sheiner died June 5 of renal failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son, Andrew Sheiner, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Sheiner also appeared as the apostle James the Elder in George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and had a meaty turn as Guido Lorenz, cop and partner of Charles Bronson’s Det. Lou Torrey, in the neo-noir thriller The Stone Killer (1973), directed by Michael Winner.
Sheiner had worked opposite Matthau and Jayne Mansfield in the 1955-56 Broadway comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? before he was hired to play the crotchety Roy the accountant in The Odd Couple, directed by Gene Saks.
Other regulars in the card game that takes place in the Upper West Side apartment shared by Matthau’s Oscar Madison and Lemmon’s Felix Ungar: the henpecked Vinnie (John Fiedler), Murray the cop (Herbert Edelman) and the sarcastic Speed (Larry Haines). It wasn’t decided until the last minute if Sheiner or Haines would play Roy or Speed.
Matthau, of course, portrayed Oscar alongside Art Carney as Felix in the Neil Simon 1965-67 Broadway version that was directed by Mike Nichols.
Saul David Sheiner was born on Jan. 13, 1928, in the Bronx, where he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces, he took acting lessons for eight years on a scholarship from Actors Studio co-founder Lee Strasberg, and his classmates included Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.
When Sheiner once asked Strasberg if he had any talent, the teacher replied, “Only you would know that.”
Sheiner toured with the national company of Clifford Odets’ The Country Girl, which Strasberg produced, and made it to Broadway in 1951 in the prison-set drama Darkness at Noon, starring Claude Rains and Kim Hunter; he toured with that production was well.
He started out as a hotel bellman in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? before taking over the role of George MacCauley that was originated by Orson Bean.
According to his son, when gangsters in the 1950s threatened to break Matthau’s legs because he owned them money, Sheiner lent him hundreds of dollars to get him out of trouble. Sheiner eventually got his money back (Matthau’s wife told him years later not everybody did).
On television, Sheiner played the doctor on the submarine in the memorable 1963 Twilight Zone episode “The Thirty-Fathom Grave” and was the boss of Diana Rigg’s fashion designer on the 1973 NBC sitcom Diana (Barbara Barrie portrayed his wife).
He showed up on dozens of other shows, from Studio One, Perry Mason, The Detectives, Combat!, Mr. Novak, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Fugitive, The Big Valley, Hawaii Five-O and Mission: Impossible to Mannix, Columbo, Planet of the Apes, Medical Center, The Six Million Dollar Man, Vega$, Quincy, M.E., The Fall Guy and, for his last onscreen credit in 1988, Murder, She Wrote.
Meanwhile, his film résumé included A Man Called Gannon (1968), Winning (1969), They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), Battle Creek Brawl (1980) and Blue Thunder (1983).
Sheiner served for years on SAG’s Wages and Working Conditions committee and on the Film Academy committee that helps select international films for Oscar consideration, and his best friend was Lost in Space star Jonathan Harris.
In addition to his son, survivors include his wife, Mary-David Sheiner, a TV writer whose mother was Mary C. McCall Jr., the first woman president of the WGA, then known as the Screen Writers Guild; his daughter, Kate; and his granddaughter, Liv.
Donations in his memory can be made to the Motion Picture & Television Fund.
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