RL

Ron Leibman has died.  Perhaps not a major star, but he had a ferocious style that was quite memorable.

He mostly worked on stage in the 1960s, appearing in several Broadway plays.  He made a notable film debut in Carl Reiner's crazy 1970 comedy Where's Poppa?, playing George Segal's brother who runs across Central Park to help their mother, though he always gets mugged.  He next played a wild driver in the caper comedy The Hot Rock.

He finally got to play the lead in 1974's The Super Cops as rowdy Officer Greenberg.  He showed a somewhat more dramatic side in 1979's Norma Rae as a union organizer.  Also around this time he starred in the crime series Kaz, which lasted one season but won him an Emmy.

He went on the work in many more movies and TV series, but also returned to Broadway in the 1980s, starring in two Neil Simon plays, I Ought To Be In Pictures and Rumors, as well as Doubles by David White.

Then in the 1990s came what was probably his greatest role--I have to take the critics' word for it--as Roy Cohn in Angels In America (a play with two parts, both opening on Broadway in 1993).  There were eight actors in the original production, all in leading parts, but it was Leibman who won the Tony for Best Actor.

Ironically, the role he may be best known for with the general public he almost turned down--Dr. Leonard Green, Rachel Green's rather imperious father on Friends. He appeared in several episodes. In the 2000s he went on to appear three times in The Sopranos as Dr. Plepler and did voice work on Archer.

The best actors carve their own niche.  That was Ron Leibman.