Marvin Wilbur Kaplan
Marvin Wilbur Kaplan was born on January 24, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York. He lived with his parents, Dr. Isadore and Mrs. Ruth Rothman Kaplan and his two sisters, Eleanor and Rene.
Marvin graduated high school at 16, attended Brooklyn College and got into a pre-med course at NYU, which included a “grueling” lab class. Marvin took the pre-med course because his father was hoping for a second doctor in the family. Marvin had difficulty with the lab course and therefore he had to go to school on Saturdays to catch up. In chemistry class, Marvin was involved in a lab explosion with chlorine gas and he incurred a $40 breakage fee. Marvin was informed that he would not be graded for this course (which was an F), without the lab fee payment.
Both Marvin and his father were convinced Marvin would never be a doctor. Therefore, Marvin switched to Brooklyn College and started out as a journalism major. Marvin did publicity for the drama organization at Brooklyn College. Also, Marvin auditioned for his first play, a production of Our Town. Marvin recalled that the costume department only had one pair of knickers, which he had to share with another actor. In his next show, Marvin played the back end of the horse in The Taming of the Shrew. Regarding these pays, Marvin stated, “I loved acting in my first plays; this wasn’t an auspicious beginning to my career!"
Marvin graduated from Brooklyn College with a bachelor's degree in English. He then worked as a bookkeeper for Warner Brothers in New York. However, Marvin was unhappy in this position, since he yearned to do script writing.
In 1947, Marvin decided to relocate to Hollywood and pursue his goal of playwriting and radio writing. He took courses at USC toward a Master’s degree in theater. One day, William DeMille, the older brother of Cecil B. DeMille and a Professor in the Theatre Department at USC called Marvin over to give him some advice. He stated, "Mr. Kaplan, you’ve taken all our theater courses, but I advise you to drop out of school. Don’t pursue your Master’s degree right now. Instead, get a job in the theater as an assistant stage manager. See what actors do to writers’ lines!"
Marvin took Mr. Professor DeMille’s advice and began job hunting. He got a job as the stage manager at the Circle Theatre for a play entitled Rain. Marvin stage-managed the play for several months until its closing. Now that Marvin was a member of the Circle Theatre, he was able to audition for the next play, a French farce by Moliere. The director, Mabel Albertson, noted, “He read all my lines with a Brooklyn accent!” She thought that Marvin’s delivery was so funny that she gave him the part. He got mixed reviews, like "his awkwardness may seem deliberate, but we doubt it."
In the ninth week of the production run, a major movie star, Katharine Hepburn, was sitting in the audience. She stayed afterward to meet the cast. Miss Hepburn came up to Marvin and said, "You’re Marvin Kaplan, aren’t you? Have you done a lot of work?" He admitted that, no, this was his first job. "Well, you were awfully good," she said. Marvin responded, saying, "You remind me of my sister. You both have red hair and freckles." She replied, "Yes; this damn sun!"
"Changed my whole life," Mr. Kaplan later told an interviewer regarding Hepburn. "I didn't think I'd ever get a job as an actor because I'm not a very handsome person. I didn't think I wanted to be an actor. She decided I should be."
When he arrived for the Rain rehearsal the next day, there was a note on the bulletin board for Marvin: "Call MGM." Marvin thought the note was referring to a page job. When Marvin called, he was told to be at George Cukor’s office at 3:00 that day for an interview. Mr. Cukor said, "Katharine Hepburn is your agent – she recommended you for a part in a movie." He described the movie, which would come to be called Adam’s Rib.
Marvin’s interview consisted of Mr. Cukor instructing Marvin to repeat a very emotional testimony in a dull, flat voice. Marvin quipped “I have a dull flat voice." Mr. Cukor said, "I noticed." Marvin got the job. It was 1949 and Marvin was 22 years old. Marvin related how both Jonathan Winters and Charlie Chaplin gave Marvin the best advice of all, saying “If what you’re doing is funny, don’t be funny doing it” Marvin stated that this technique “works for everything, from acting to writing. Whatever you’re doing, there’s a truth behind it. You’re better off telling the truth. And it’s easier to tell the truth.”
‘After his performance in Adam's Rib, Marvin went on to perform in a number of loveable, sometime dim-witted roles on TV ("Alice") and in cartoons ("Top Cat"). Marvin got parts that established him as a comedic character actor who was immediately recognizable by his thick glasses, thicker eyebrows and Brooklyn accent.
Marvin became ubiquitous on the large and small screens. In director Stanley Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963), Marvin and actor Arnold Stang play gas station attendants in a memorable sequence in which Jonathan Winters's character destroys a service station. Marvin had parts in films including "Francis" (1950), a comedy about a talking Army mule, the baseball comedy "Angels in the Outfield" (1951), "The Nutty Professor" (1963) starring Jerry Lewis, "A New Kind of Love" (1963) with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, "The Great Race" (1965) with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk, "Francis" (1950), a comedy about a talking Army mule, the baseball comedy "Angels in the Outfield" (1951), "The Nutty Professor" (1963) starring Jerry Lewis, "A New Kind of Love" (1963) with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, "The Great Race" (1965) with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk, and "Freaky Friday" (1976) with Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster.
Kaplan is probably best known for his recurring role on the sitcom Alice where he portrayed a phone lineman named Henry Beesmeyer who frequented Mel's diner. He was with the cast from 1977 until the series ended in 1985. In addition, the actor was the voice of Choo-Choo on the cartoon series Top Cat, Marvin on The Chicago Teddy Bears, and Dwight McGonigle in On the Air. He also provided the voice of Skids on the Saturday morning cartoon CB Bears. In other roles, he portrayed Mr. Milfloss in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, an electronics expert, Ensign Kwasniak, on McHale's Navy "All Ahead, Empty", and in 1969, appeared as Stanley on Petticoat Junction in the episode: "The Other Woman". He later played Mr. Gordon on Becker alongside Ted Danson. He returned to voice-over acting, playing roles in shows such as Garfield and Friends, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Johnny Bravo, and later, The Garfield Show in 2011. Kaplan was the commercial spokesperson for the American cologne Eau de Love.
Marvin had a regular role in the radio sitcom and later television version of Meet Millie as Alfred Prinzmetal, an aspiring poet-composer. The program ran from 1951–54 on radio and continued on television from 1952–56. Marvin joined the California Artists Radio Theatre in January 1984 and performed leading roles in over twenty 90-minute productions. He created two musicals for the group and one. "A Good House for A Killing" is a successful Musical Comedy. He appeared in CART's Alice in Wonderland as the White Rabbit, and In Norman Corwin's Plot to Overthrow Christmas with CART, as Nero's messenger opposite David Warner. He Was in CART's Bradbury 75th Birthday Tribute. He played opposite Jo Ann Worley in three CART productions: Corwin's 100th Birthday, Chekhov's Humoresque and in The Man with Bogart's Face" he was the Cowardly Lion in Cart's Wizard of Oz opposite Norman Lloyd and Linda Henning. And was the Lead in "Clarence" opposite Samantha Eggar and Janet Waldo; and Dr. Einstein opposite David Warner in Cart's Arsenic and Old Lace. He served on the Board for California Artists Radio Theatre for 32 years. Marvin Kaplan appeared as Geppetto on Adventures in Odyssey's Club episode entitled The Tale of a Foolish Puppet Parts 1 & 2 recorded in 2014 and released in 2015.
His earliest television roles included the part of Alfred Prinzmetal, an aspiring poet and composer, on “Meet Millie,” the 1950s CBS sitcom that began as a radio show. In the 1960s and 1970s, he appeared on “Petticoat Junction,” “Gomer Pyle: USMC,” “I Dream of Jeannie” and “Mod Squad.” More recently, he cropped up on shows such as “ER” and “Becker.”
Mr. Kaplan did extensive voice acting work, including as Choo Choo in the 1960s series “Top Cat” and as several characters in “Garfield and Friends” in the 1990s.
Marvin was a past president of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and advocated on behalf of aging actors who must contend with Hollywood’s fascination with youth. For many years, Marvin was a member of Theatre West, the oldest continually-operating theatre company in Los Angeles. He performed in many plays there and elsewhere.
Marvin enjoyed his career so much so that he never retired. In recent years he wrote the screenplay for a comedic film, “Watch Out for Slick” (2010), and executive produced “Lookin’ Up,” a comedy starring Steve Guttenberg, Debra Sullivan, and Fay DeWitt, which Marvin wrote with Steven Carter and also appears in.
Marvin is thankful for the special people in his life. He stated, “I’m very lucky. I have a wonderful support group of high-energy collaborators and actors – talented people who are great at their craft. I recognize that I’m a very lopsided human being! I’m very committed to my craft: writing, acting, theater, and film. I have a good life, but I made it for myself. You gotta make it for yourself, as you live your life, you learn that the things you give away are the only things you really can keep. There’s a reward in giving away things. You can hold on to them that way.”
Marvin got good advice early in his career. He said, “Long ago, my composer, Richard Loring, who died in 2005, told me, "Go where you are honored." For me, that means living and working where you are liked and respected. That way you won’t feel exploited.”
In 2013, Kaplan married Rosa Felsenburg. They were together for 3 years and then the marriage ended in divorce.
Kaplan died in his sleep 9 of natural causes on August 25, 2016 at the age of 89 in Burbank, California. He is buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery in New York.
Filmography
Film
Adam's Rib (1949) as Court Stenographer
Francis (1950) as First Medical Corps lieutenant
Key to the City (1950) as Francis – Newspaper Photographer
The Reformer and the Redhead (1950) as Leon
I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1951) as Arnold Fisher
The Fat Man (1951) as Pinkie
Criminal Lawyer (1951) as Sam Kutler
Behave Yourself! (1951) as Max the Umbrella
Angels in the Outfield (1951) as Timothy Durney
The Fabulous Senorita (1952) as Clifford Van Kunkle
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) as Hap Cosgrove
The Nutty Professor (1963) as English Student
A New Kind of Love (1963) as Harry
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as Irwin, service station co-owner
The Great Race (1965) as Frisbee
The Severed Arm (1973) as Mad Man Herman
Snakes (1974) as Brother Joy
Freaky Friday (1976) as Carpet Cleaner
Midnight Madness (1980) as Bonaventure Desk Clerk
Hollywood Vice Squad (1986) as man with doll
Wild at Heart (1990) as Uncle Pooch
Delirious (1991) as Typewriter Repairman
Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway (1993) as Morris
Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love (1994) as Mr. Dawson
Dark and Stormy Night (2009) as Gunny
Lookin' Up (2016) as Vic Greeley (final film role)
Television
Meet Millie (1951-1954) as Alfred Prinzmetal
The Danny Thomas Show (1958) as Oscar 'Evil Eye' Schultz
The Detectives (1961, Episode: "Hit and Miss") as Irwin
Top Cat (1961–1962) as Choo-Choo (voice)
Gomer Pyle, USMC (1968, Episode: "The Carriage Waits") as Mr. Kendall
Mod Squad (1969) as Sol Alpert
I Dream of Jeannie (1970, Episode: "One of Our Hotels Is Growing") as Perkins
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (1972, Episode: "Love Story") as Norman
CB Bears (1977) as Skids
Charlie's Angels (1977, Episode: "Circus of Terror") as Zobar
CHiPS (1978, Episode: "Disaster Squad") as Hilmer Nelson
Alice (1978-1985) as Henry Beesmeyer
Saturday Supercade (1984) as Shellshock 'Shelly' Turtle (voice)
MacGyver (1986, Episode: "A Prisoner of Conscience") as The Chess Master
The Smurfs (1986) as Gourdy (voice)
Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats (1988) as Choo-Choo (voice)
Wake, Rattle & Roll (1990, Segment: "Fender Bender 500") as Choo Choo (voice)
Monsters (1990, Episode: "Murray's Monster") as Murray Van Pelt
Garfield and Friends (1991, Episode: "Moo Cow Mutt/Big Bad Buddy Bird/Angel Puss") as Angel Puss (voice)
The Cartoon Cartoon Show (1995, Episode: "O. Ratz: Rat in a Hot Tin Can") as Dave D. Fly
Johnny Bravo (1997, Episode: Going Batty/Berry the Butler/Red Faced in the White House) as Woody (voice)
Becker (1998–2004) as Mr. Gordon
Cool Cats in Interview Alley (2004, Video short) as himself
The Garfield Show (2012) as Hiram "High" Pressure (voice)ailment.
~Blog by Renee Meyers
