Mike Nussbaum, the Oldest Working Jewish Actor, Tells All

With no Jewish holidays coming up immediately, we bring you profiles of some well known and some not so well known Jews. Enjoy.

Laura Hodes for The Jewish Daily Forward   

At 91, Mike Nussbaum has been called the oldest professional actor in theater. He’s currently playing the role of Gregory Solomon in Arthur Miller’s 1968 play “The Price” at the Timeline Theatre in Chicago. After spending about 17 years in the exterminating business, Nussbaum got his acting start with playwright David Mamet, eventually appearing in Broadway productions of “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “American Buffalo.” In Chicago, Nussbaum is a theater legend, and the role of Solomon — a Russian-American furniture dealer — seems almost as though it was written specifically for him.

“In brief, a phenomenon,” Miller wrote of Solomon in his notes for the play. “(He is) a man nearly ninety but still straight-backed and the air of his massiveness still with him. He has perfected a way of leaning on his cane without appearing weak.”

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