Martin Gabel
Encyclopedia
Martin Gabel was an American actor, film director
and film producer
.
, the son of Ruth (née Herzog) and Israel Gabel, who was a jeweler. He married Arlene Francis
on May 14, 1946, and they had a son named Peter Gabel
, former president of New College of California
.
Gabel's most noted work was as narrator and host of the May 8, 1945 CBS
radio broadcast of Norman Corwin
's epic dramatic poem On a Note of Triumph, a commemoration of the fall of the Nazi regime in Germany and the end of World War II
in Europe. The broadcast was so popular that the CBS, NBC
, Blue
and Mutual
networks broadcast a second live production of the program on May 13. The Columbia Masterworks record label subsequently published an album of the May 13 production. The production became the title focus of the Academy Award
-winning short film A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin
in 2005, the 60th anniversary year of the broadcast.
Gabel won the 1961 Tony Award
for Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for Big Fish, Little Fish; he was also noted for his performances in the Broadway productions of Baker Street
, in which he played Professor Moriarty
; The Rivalry, in which he played Stephen A. Douglas
; and several Mercury Theatre
productions directed by Orson Welles
.
Gabel made few films over his career, usually in small roles. A notable large supporting part was as crime boss Tomas Rienzi in Richard Brooks
's Deadline U.S.A. in 1952, starring Humphrey Bogart
. Gabel played another mob figure in a Frank Sinatra
private-detective film, Lady in Cement
, and co-starred again with Sinatra in Contract on Cherry Street and The First Deadly Sin. He played a psychiatrist in the Billy Wilder
remake of The Front Page
with Walter Matthau
and Jack Lemmon
.
He was also a frequent guest panelist on the popular CBS Sunday night game show What's My Line?, on which his wife Arlene Francis regularly appeared.
He died in New York City
from a heart attack
.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
.
Life and career
Gabel was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, the son of Ruth (née Herzog) and Israel Gabel, who was a jeweler. He married Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis was an American actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist...
on May 14, 1946, and they had a son named Peter Gabel
Peter Gabel
Peter Gabel, Ph.D., is an American law academic and associate editor of Tikkun, a bi-monthly Jewish critique of politics, culture, and society and has written a number of articles for the magazine on subjects ranging from the original intent of the framers of the Constitution to the...
, former president of New College of California
New College of California
New College of California was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971 by former Gonzaga University President, Father John Leary. After 37 years, it ceased operations in early 2008....
.
Gabel's most noted work was as narrator and host of the May 8, 1945 CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
radio broadcast of Norman Corwin
Norman Corwin
Norman Lewis Corwin was an American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing...
's epic dramatic poem On a Note of Triumph, a commemoration of the fall of the Nazi regime in Germany and the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in Europe. The broadcast was so popular that the CBS, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, Blue
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and Mutual
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...
networks broadcast a second live production of the program on May 13. The Columbia Masterworks record label subsequently published an album of the May 13 production. The production became the title focus of the Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-winning short film A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin
A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin
A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin is a 2005 documentary short subject about writer Norman Corwin. In addition to Corwin, the cast includes Robert Altman, Norman Lear, Walter Cronkite, Studs Terkel, and radio historians Timothy Troy and Norman Gilliland.On March 5, 2006 it won the...
in 2005, the 60th anniversary year of the broadcast.
Gabel won the 1961 Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for Big Fish, Little Fish; he was also noted for his performances in the Broadway productions of Baker Street
Baker Street (musical)
Baker Street is a musical with a book by Jerome Coopersmith and music and lyrics by Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessel.Loosely based on the Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle, it is set in and around London in 1897, the year in which England celebrated the Diamond...
, in which he played Professor Moriarty
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the "Napoleon of Crime". Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yard inspector who was...
; The Rivalry, in which he played Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician from the western state of Illinois, and was the Northern Democratic Party nominee for President in 1860. He lost to the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, whom he had defeated two years earlier in a Senate contest following a famed...
; and several Mercury Theatre
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman. After a string of live theatrical productions, in 1938 the Mercury Theatre progressed into their best-known period as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio series that included one of the...
productions directed by Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
.
Gabel made few films over his career, usually in small roles. A notable large supporting part was as crime boss Tomas Rienzi in Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks was an American screenwriter, film director, novelist and occasional film producer.-Early life and career:...
's Deadline U.S.A. in 1952, starring Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
. Gabel played another mob figure in a Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
private-detective film, Lady in Cement
Lady In Cement
Lady In Cement is a 1968 detective film, directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch, Dan Blocker, Martin Gabel and Richard Conte. A sequel to the 1967 film Tony Rome, and based on the novel by Marvin H...
, and co-starred again with Sinatra in Contract on Cherry Street and The First Deadly Sin. He played a psychiatrist in the Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
remake of The Front Page
The Front Page
The Front Page is a hit Broadway comedy about tabloid newspaper reporters on the police beat, written by one-time Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur which was first produced in 1928.-Synopsis:...
with Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
and Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...
.
He was also a frequent guest panelist on the popular CBS Sunday night game show What's My Line?, on which his wife Arlene Francis regularly appeared.
He died in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
.
Filmography
- The First Deadly SinThe First Deadly SinThe First Deadly Sin is a 1980 American film produced by and starring Frank Sinatra, along with Faye Dunaway, David Dukes, Brenda Vaccaro, James Whitmore, Martin Gabel in his final acting role, and Bruce Willis in his film debut...
(1980) ... as Christopher Langley - Contract on Cherry StreetContract on Cherry StreetContract on Cherry Street, a novel by Phillip Rosenberg about a New York police detective who turns vigilante against the mob when one of his partners is gunned down, was adapted for television in 1977 by Frank Sinatra's production company Artanis. Directed by William A...
(1977) ... as Baruch 'Bob' Waldman, Crime Boss - The Front PageThe Front PageThe Front Page is a hit Broadway comedy about tabloid newspaper reporters on the police beat, written by one-time Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur which was first produced in 1928.-Synopsis:...
(1974) ... as Dr. Max J. Eggelhofer - Smile, Jenny, You're Dead (1974) ... as Meade De Ruyter
- HarveyHarvey (TV movie)Harvey is a 1998 American television fantasy film comedy directed by George Schaefer. It stars Harry Anderson and Leslie Nielsen. It is based on Mary Chase's play of the same name about a man whose best friend is a pooka named Harvey—in the form of a six-foot rabbit only he can see. Anderson...
(1972) ... as Judge Omar Gaffney - There Was a Crooked Man...There Was a Crooked Man...There Was a Crooked Man... is a 1970 western comedy starring Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The film follows Paris Pitman , a charismatic criminal who ends up in jail, and his attempts to escape the prison of warden Lopeman...
(1970) .... as Warden LeGoff - Lady in CementLady In CementLady In Cement is a 1968 detective film, directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch, Dan Blocker, Martin Gabel and Richard Conte. A sequel to the 1967 film Tony Rome, and based on the novel by Marvin H...
(1968) ... as Al Munger - Divorce American StyleDivorce American StyleDivorce American Style is a 1967 American satirical comedy film directed by Bud Yorkin.Norman Lear produced the film and wrote the script based on a story by Robert Kaufman...
(1967) ... as Dr. Zenwinn - Lord Love a DuckLord Love a DuckLord Love a Duck is a 1966 black comedy starring Roddy McDowall and Tuesday Weld. The film was a satire of popular culture at the time, its targets ranging from progressive education to Beach Party films...
(1966) (uncredited) ... as T. Harrison Belmont - Goodbye CharlieGoodbye CharlieGoodbye Charlie is a 1964 comedy film about a callous womanizer who gets his just reward. It was adapted from George Axelrod's play Goodbye, Charlie and starred Debbie Reynolds and Tony Curtis...
(1964) ... as Morton Craft - MarnieMarnie (film)Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
(1964) ... as Sidney Strutt - The Making of the President 1960 (1963) ... as Narrator
- The Power and the GloryThe Power and the GloryThe Power and the Glory is a novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often added to the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever , amen." This novel has also been published in the US under the name The...
(1961) ... as Chief of police - The CrimebustersThe CrimebustersThe Crimebusters is a 1961 film directed by Boris Sagal. It stars Peter Mark Richman and Martin Gabel.-Cast:*Peter Mark Richman as Nicholas Cain*Martin Gabel as George Vincent*Phillip Pine as Phil Krajac*Carol Eve Rossen as Stella...
(1961) ... as George Vincent - Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957) ... as Bert Smith
- The James Dean StoryThe James Dean StoryThe James Dean Story is a 1957 American documentary.Released two years after Dean's death, the Warner Bros. Pictures release chronicles his short life and career via black-and-white still photographs, interviews with the aunt and uncle who raised him, his paternal grandparents, a New York City...
(1957) ... as Narrator - The ThiefThe Thief (1952 film)The Thief is a 1952 American black-and white Cold War spy film directed by Russell Rouse. The film is unusual because there is no dialog spoken throughout the film.-Plot:...
(1952) ... as Mr. Bleek - Deadline - U.S.A.Deadline - U.S.A.Deadline – U.S.A. is a 1952 crime film starring Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore and Kim Hunter. A crusading newspaper editor fights a gangster. The newspaper used as background on the film, called The Day is loosely based upon the old New York City newspaper The Sun, which closed in 1950. The...
(1952) ... as Tomas Rienzi - M (1951) ... as Charlie Marshall, crime boss
- Pictura (1951) ... as Narrator
- Fourteen HoursFourteen HoursFourteen Hours is a 1951 drama film directed by Henry Hathaway, which tells the story of a New York police officer trying to stop a despondent man from jumping to his death from the fifteenth floor of a hotel....
(1951) ... as Dr. Strauss - What's My Line?What's My Line?What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....
(1950s) ... Occasional panelist - Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) (associate producer)
- The Lost MomentThe Lost MomentThe Lost Moment is a 1947 drama film made by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Martin Gabel and produced by Walter Wanger, from a screenplay by Leonardo Bercovici based on the novel The Aspern Papers by Henry James...
(1947) (director)