| Cliff Osmond (Clifford O. Ebrahim) | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 26, 1937 (age 74) Jersey City, NJ |
Cliff Osmond (born Clifford O. Ebrahim on February 26, 1937) is an American character actor and television screenwriter best known for appearing in films directed by Billy Wilder. A parallel career as an acting teacher coincided with his other activities.
Osmond was born in Jersey City's Margaret Hague Medical Center, raised in Union City, N.J. A graduate of Thomas A. Edison grammar school, Emerson High School, and Dartmouth College (BA in English), he received his Masters Degree in Business Administration from UCLA, and advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. in Theater History at UCLA.
He appeared in four of Billy Wilder's comedies, beginning with Irma la Douce (1963) as the police sergeant. He played the songwriter Barney Millsap in Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), which used new comedic song lyrics by Ira Gershwin set to unused tunes composed by his brother George. Osmond also appeared in two later Wilder films a co-starring role as Purkey opposite Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie (1966), and The Front Page (1974).
Osmond made more than 100 appearances in TV shows or movies between 1962 and 1996. During that period he he guest-starred in at least half a dozen Gunsmoke episodes, an episode ("The Gift", 1962) of the original The Twilight Zone, Here's Lucy (1974)All in the Family (1975), The Bob Newhart Show (1975), and Kojak (1976).
Also a screenwriter, Osmond was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award for writing an episode of Streets of San Francisco (1973). He also wrote and directed the features film The Penitent (1988), starring Raul Julia and Armand Assante.
As an actor received a Best Actor award for his UCLA performance of Berthold Brecht's Baal, and the Joseph Jefferson acting award for a Chicago stage appearance in Shaw's You Never Can Tell.
In addition to his acting and writing careers, Osmond has for over thirty years, also been an acting teacher and coach in Los Angeles. He has taught and lectured to over twenty thousand students there and around the country, in forty states, in a dozen universities, and in his own private acting schools in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Antonio. In the fall of 2004, he was visiting professor in acting and Guest Resident Artist at Georgetown University, teaching two acting courses and directing Ibsen's A Doll's House.
In 2010 he wrote a book about his career and acting: Acting is Living: Exploring the Ten Essential Elements in any Successful Performance.
He wife is Gretchen Ebrahim; the couple have two children: Margaret (Mishi) and Eric.