George Segal, whose decades-long acting career included winning an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? portray Albert “Pops” Solomon in The Goldbergs, died on Tuesday, Variety reports. He was 87 years old.
His wife, Sônia, confirmed the news. “The family is devastated to announce that George Segal passed away this morning due to complications from bypass surgery,” she said in a statement.
Since 2013, Segal has portrayed family patriarch Albert “Pops” Solomon on the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs. Although he is known for his role on TV at a later stage The Goldbergs and Just shoot me! where he played magazine owner and editor Jack Gallo, who earned him two Golden Globe nominations, he launched his career on Broadway. He got roles in programs like Gideon (1961-1962) and Rattle of a Simple Man (1963), after studying at Actor’s Studio.
He signed to Columbia Pictures, where he got his first film role in 1961. Young doctors. Throughout the early 1960s, he appeared on several television shows and in 1965 he won his first major film role in the Stanley Kramer drama Ship of Fools, starring alongside a cast that included Vivien Leigh and Lee Marvin. The film was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Film category.
Segal himself received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in the 1966 adaptation of Mike Nichols’ Edward Albee to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where Segal played a university professor starring alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
During the sixties and seventies, he was cast by several renowned directors for leading roles, including Sidney Lumet (1968 Bye Bye Braverman), Carl Reiner (1970s Where is Daddy?), Herbert Ross (1970s The owl and the kitten), Paul Mazursky (1973’s Passionate Blume) and Robert Altman (1974’s California Split)
In the eighties, he appeared in films like Burt Reynolds’ Stick on and the popular comedy of 1989 Look who is talking as well as films and television series. In the following decade, he appeared as an actor in several films, including 1991 For boys and 1996 Flirting with disaster and made appearances on programs like Murder she wrote and The Larry Sanders Show before their prominent roles in Just shoot me! and The Goldbergs. He also appeared in films like 2005’s Heights and 2010 Love and Other Drugs. In 2017, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In addition to his passion for acting, he was an avid banjo player. He made appearances playing the instrument on TV shows like The Tonight Show and he released an album and performed at the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band.