Background
GOULD, Elliott was born on August 29, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. Son of Bernard and Lucille (nee Raver) Goldstein.
GOULD, Elliott was born on August 29, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. Son of Bernard and Lucille (nee Raver) Goldstein.
Student, Professional Children's School, New York City, 1955. Pupil of, Jerome Swinford. Pupil of, Sonya Box; Pupil of, Bill Quinn.
Pupil of Colin Romoff. Pupil of, Charles Lowe. Pupil of, Eugene Lewis.
Pupil of Matt Mattox.
If you lifted off the music in The Long Goodbye (73, Robert Altman), the endless attempts at the title tune, you might not realize that Elliott Gould’s performance is like a brilliant, very cool, stoned musician—Art Pepper, say—doing “I Can't Get Started" in a Bogart mood. He’s hunched over his instrument, very sad, very alone, vet chronically musical. It's a great performance, with a lovely, secret beat that everyone else in the movie feels but cannot quite get.
Clearly, that kind of acting wasn’t going to start a trend, and Gould’s career was slipping away by the mid-seventies. Not that he was the man to resist slippage. Still, his doomed cameo in Bugsy (91, Barry Levinson) was enough to remind us ail of what we have missed over the years and of the rare gentleness in Gould.
The list is not cheerful: a deaf-mute in Quick, Let’s Get Married (64, William Dieterle); The Night They Raided Minsky’s (68, William Friedkin); a supporting actor nomination in Bob 6- Carol 6- Ted 6 Alice (69, Paul Mazurskv); Getting Straight (70, Richard Rush); I Love My Wife (70, Mel Stuart); M°A°S°H. (70, Altman); Move (70, Stuart Rosenberg); having and missing his big chance, in The Touch (71, Ingmar Bergman); Little Murders (71, Alan Arkin); Busting (74, Peter Hyams); California Split (74, Altman); S.P.Y.S. (74, Irvin Kershner); Who? (74. Jack Gold); I Will, I Will. . . For Now (76, Norman Panama); briefly in Nashville (75, Altman); Whiffs (75, Ted Post); Harry and Walter Go to Neiv York (76, Mark Rydell); Mean Johnny Barrows (76, Fred Williamson); A Bridge Too Far (77, Richard Attenborough); Capricorn One (78, Hyams); Escape to Athena (79, George Pan Cosmatos); The Lach/ Vanishes (79, Anthony Page); The Mnppet Movie (79, James Fravvley); Falling in Love Again (80, Steven Paul); The Las! Flight of Noah 's Ark (80, Charles Jarrott); The Devil and Max Devlin (81, Steven Hilliard Stern); Dirtty Tricks (81, Alvin Rakoff); Over the Brooklyn Bridge (84, Menahem Golan); The Naked Face (85, Bryan Forbes); Inside Out (86, Robert Taicher); Dangerous Love (88, Marty Ollstein); The Telephone (88, Rip Torn); The Lemon Sisters (90, Joyce Chopra); and Night Visitor (90, Rupert Hitzig).
For years now, Gould has done little bits all over the place, apparently cheerful, and always ready to rise to good material. Is there another screen presence so innately appealing and so steadily wasted? Wet and Wild Summer! (92, Maurice Murphy); Togo il Disturho (92, Dino Risi); Amore! (93, Lorenzo Doumani); Bleeding Hearts (94, Gregory Hines); The Glass Shield (94, Charles Burnett); The Feminine Touch (94, Conrad Janis); Kicking and Screaming (95, Noah Baumbach); Let It Be Me (95, Eleanor Bergstein); Johns (96, Scott Silver); Busted (96, Corey Feldman); Citi/ of Industry (97, John Irvin)—uncredited; the TV version of The Shining (97, Mick Garris); The Big Hit (98, Kirk Wong); American History X (98, Tony Kaye); Picking Up the Pieces (00, Alfonsau Aran); Playing Mona Lisa (00, Matthew Huffman); and a recurring role as Ross and Monica’s father in Friends.
Member Actor's Equity Association, American Federation of television and Radio Artists, Screen Actors Guild.
Married 1st Barbra Streisand in 1963 (divorced in 1971), one s. Married 2nd Jenny Bogart in 1973 (divorced in 1975, remarried in 1978), one son one daughter.