I was saddened to hear of the death this weekend of Ron Leibman at age 82. Television fans knew him as Rachel’s father on “Friends,” and Broadway fans knew him from his Tony-winning performance as Roy Cohn in “Angels In America.”
Martha and I only saw Leibman on stage once, in 1985, in a Broadway play called “Doubles.” When I say we saw him, I mean all of him, because the play takes place entirely in the locker room of a tennis club. At one point or another, Leibman and his co-stars (John Cullum, Tony Roberts, and Austin Pendleton) each went to the showers off-stage and then re-entered the locker room wearing a merely a towel — or in Leibman’s case, less.
But that’s not what I remember Ron Leibman for. Rather, when I think of him, I’m reminded of two film roles, one terrific and the other just fun.
The terrific one was Leibman as Reuben Warshowsky, a union organizer from New York who traveled to a small town in North Carolina to try to get workers to form a union at a textile mill in Martin Ritt’s 1979 movie “Norma Rae.” As he so often did, Leibman embodied the role, making Reuben a true mensch, and his chemistry with Sally Field (who won an Oscar for her performance) was sparkling and warm, though platonic. Rarely has a man’s passion for his work, and his ability to share it with others, been portrayed better on screen.
The fun one was Peter Yates’ 1972 comedy “The Hot Rock,” about a motley crew of four men (Robert Redford, Paul Sand, George Segal, and Leibman) tasked with stealing a huge diamond from a museum. Leibman played Murch, whose expertise included knowing traffic patterns and the best routes to use to get away in Manhattan. As things continually went awry with the team’s plans, Leibman also had one of the funniest scenes, sitting atop a police station lobbing tear gas grenades onto the street below, to the complete confusion of both cops and bystanders.
I also remember Leibman as the title character in a CBS legal drama, “Kaz,” which — despite winning him an Emmy for lead actor — was cancelled after one season (1978-79) because the network moved it around to so many different nights and time slots that even the most loyal fans had trouble knowing when it was on each week.
Leibman was an always-reliable actor who leaves behind a track record of impressive work in multiple media.