Jerry Adler, a longtime behind-the-scenes Broadway manager and an actor in “The Sopranos,” “The Good Wife” and “Rescue Me,” died on Saturday in New York. He was 96.
His death was confirmed by the Riverside Memorial Chapel. A cause of death was not immediately known.
Born on Feb. 4, 1929, Mr. Adler hailed from Brooklyn and spent much of his entertainment career in New York, where he first cut his teeth on Broadway.
He became a veteran theater hand, stage managing, directing or producing more than 50 Broadway shows — including working on the original “My Fair Lady” — before moving to California in the 1980s to be closer to his children.
He worked for nearly a decade on soap operas before a fairy tale, late-career transformation to become an actor.
Mr. Adler gained critical acclaim in the 1992 film “The Public Eye” with Joe Pesci, when he was cast at the age of 62 as a gruff newspaper columnist named Arthur Nabler.
The role catapulted him into a twilight career of auditions, readings and other roles, where directors gravitated to his “Everyman” quality. The New York Times in 1992 called him “a nicer Rodney Dangerfield.”
He would spend much of the rest of his life in front of the camera.
He was perhaps best known for playing Herman “Hesh” Rabkin, a sage guide and associate to the DiMeo crime family, in a role that he reprised across six seasons of the HBO drama “The Sopranos.”
He also had recurring roles as the lawyer Howard Lyman in “The Good Wife” and as the grizzled fire chief Sidney Feinberg in “Rescue Me.”
“This started as a lark,” Mr. Adler said of his acting career in 1992.
Accustomed to the grind of being behind the scenes on Broadway, he quickly found that he enjoyed the trappings of luxurious hotels, sitting in his own lavishly appointed trailer on sets and riding in limos.
“They make you feel important,” he told The New York Times.
Steven Van Zandt, a fellow star of “The Sopranos” and guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, paid tribute to Mr. Adler on social media.
“Such an honor working with you,” Mr. Van Zandt said. “Travel well my friend.”
Mr. Adler was a resident of New York when he died, according to the memorial announcement. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.
Ali Watkins covers international news for The Times and is based in Belfast.
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