David Opatoshu (born David Opatovsky; January 30, 1918 – April 30, 1996) was an American actor. He is best known for his role in the film Exodus (1960).[1]
Opatoshu began his acting career in the Yiddish theater. Following his tenure in the role of "Mr. Carp" in the 1938 national tour of the play Golden Boy, he made his Broadway debut in 1940 in the play Night Music.[2] He then appeared in numerous television series and films. In 1991, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role in the episode "A Prayer for the Goldsteins" of the television series Gabriel's Fire.
Television
His career in television began in 1949 and lasted through the 1980s.
Opatoshu in the 1969 Mannix episode "A Pittance of Faith", as Mr. Lardelli.
In 1967, he played Anan 7 in the original Star Trek series episode "A Taste of Armageddon". In 1969, he figured in a Hawaii Five-O episode "Face of the Dragon", and also in the 1969 season 3 Ironside episode "L'Chayim", and in Mannix, in the episode "A Pittance of Faith", as Mr. Lardelli, in the same year.
Opatoshu played in a 1970 episode of Daniel Boone as "Tamenund", an aged Pequot Indian bent on revenge for his tribe's near-extinction. He was also in the "No Way to Treat a Relative" episode of the 1973 situation comedy Needles and Pins (never broadcast because of the show's cancellation), the Kojak episode "Both Sides of the Law", the 1977 The Bionic Woman episode "Doomsday is Tomorrow", the 1978 Little House on the Prairie episode "I'll Be Waving as You Drive Away", the 1981 Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "Time of the Hawk", and the 1981 miniseries Masada. In 1986 he played an Iranian ambassador in the TV thriller Under Siege, about Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States.
On October 30, 1989, Opatashu guest-starred as the Tenctonese ex-slave Paul Revere in the episode "Night of the Screams", of the television series Alien Nation.
In 1991, he won an Emmy Award for his guest appearance in the episode "A Prayer for the Goldsteins" of the ABC series Gabriel's Fire.[3]
His first film, The Light Ahead (1939), directed by Henry Felt and Edgar G. Ulmer, is notable for being entirely in Yiddish. Opatoshu appeared as the homicide detective, Sgt. Ben Miller, in the film noir, The Naked City (1948) produced by Mark Hellinger. In 1958, he played a supporting character in The Brothers Karamazov with his future Star Trek co-star William Shatner. He also portrayed Herr Jacobi, one of the people who help Paul Newman and Julie Andrews escape from East Germany in Alfred Hitchcock's 1966 film Torn Curtain. He also played the father of Benny Rampell in 1963's "The Cardinal" uncredited.
David Opatoshu also wrote the screenplay for the film Romance of a Horsethief (1971), based on a novel by his father, Joseph Opatoshu.
Family
After serving with the Air Force in the South Pacific during World War II, Opatoshu returned to Manhattan and worked in radio, theater, television and films. His wartime experiences provided the material for "Between Sea and Sand," a collection of short stories he published in Yiddish in 1946. David Opatoshu was survived by his wife, Lillian Weinberg, a psychiatric social worker, whom he married on June 10, 1941. They had one child together, a son, Danny. Lillian died on May 13, 2000.[4][1]
Complete filmography
The Light Ahead (1939) — Fishke
The Naked City (1948) — Sergeant Dave Miller (uncredited)
^Brooks, Tim (2003). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present (8th ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. p. 1441. ISBN0-345-45542-8.
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