A Chicago Legend: Mike Nussbaum (1923-2023)

In an ideal world, we would be celebrating the 100th birthday of Mike Nussbaum, the oldest working actor in America and an unquestioned legend in his hometown of Chicago, where he developed and honed his craft. Alas, this is not an ideal world and, as it transpires, he passed away on December 23, a mere six days before that milestone. In a strange way, however, this event, sad as it may be, actually makes it somewhat easier to write about him because instead of primarily celebrating his incredible longevity, more focus can be placed on something far more important in the long run—his equally extraordinary gifts as an actor and the influence that he was able to have on the Chicago theater scene throughout a career that began in the 1960s and which he was still working at only a couple of weeks before his death.

He was born Myron G. Nussbaum on December 29, 1923 and grew up in the Albany Park section of Chicago’s Northwest Side. He served in the armed forces during World War II at the Allied Expeditionary Force under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and in that capacity became the one charged with cabling the news of Germany’s surrender in Paris in 1945, even appending his name to the document along with Eisenhower’s. After returning home, he got married in 1949 to his first wife, Annette, and spent the next 20 years working alongside his brother-in-law in a local extermination business.

In the Sixties, Nussbaum began his acting career as a member of Hull House, the first community theater in the United States, at the time when it was beginning to flourish under the direction of Robert Sickinger, eventually going on to influence the entire emerging Chicago theater scene. By the time the Seventies arrived, he had earned his Equity card and became a fixture on local stages, appearing in productions of such works as The Deer Park, Native Son, Death of a Salesman, Little Murders, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, The Rose Tattoo, Tuesdays with Morris, The Dresser, 1984, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Hamlet, Broadway Bound, Freud’s Last Session and The Old Country at such locations as the Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. He also directed a number of plays, including the national premiere on Broadway of Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up in 1982 and his own play, Dashiell Hamlet, in 2008. This run of work earned him 16 Joseph Jefferson award nominations for both acting and directing, winning four for acting, one for directing and a career achievement award.

His most notable collaboration over the years would be his work with David Mamet, whom he met at Second City in the 1970s. Over the years, Nussbaum would appear in a number of Mamet’s plays, even originating roles in two of the author’s most notable works—he was the first to play Teach in American Buffalo and then went on to portray George Aaronow in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Glengarry Glen Ross in 1984, first in Chicago and then as part of the first Broadway cast. In many ways, Nussbaum was the ideal embodiment of the kind of characters that Mamet was writing at the time—ordinary men doing what they had to do to get by in a harsh world who were nevertheless capable of extraordinary eloquence—and he had the ability to deliver Mamet’s often-stylized dialogue in a way that made it sound absolutely natural.

Throughout this time, Nussbaum was also a familiar face on movie and television screens and while the parts might have been small, he was usually able to make them memorable. His first screen appearance was in “The Monitors” (1969), an odd sci-fi satire that was the first film effort from Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe and he followed that up with appearances in the Chicago-shot “T.R. Baskin” (1971), “Harry and Tonto” (1974) and “Towing,” a 1977 Chicago-shot comedy for which Mamet supposedly wrote some scenes. A decade later, Mamet would make his directorial debut with the brilliant “House of Games,” in which Nussbaum would have arguably his most memorable screen role as the partner of con man Joe Mantegna in what would prove to be one of the smartest and most diabolically clever thrillers of the 80s—if you have somehow never seen this film, do whatever you can to watch it as soon as possible. That same year, Nussbaum would also appear in a small role as a book publisher in the hugely successful “Fatal Attraction.”

In 1988, he reteamed with Mamet for “Things Change,” an unexpectedly charming comedy-drama in which he played a Mafia don who offers an aging shoe shiner (Don Ameche) a life-changing sum of money to take the rap for a murder committed by another gangsrter and serve three years in prison in his place. (If you have time after “House of Games,” check this one out as well—it is the only Mamet film that can legitimately be deemed “delightful.”) The next year, he appeared as the school principal in a key scene in “Field of Dreams.” Other films of note that he turns up in include “Desperate Hours” (1990), “Gladiator” (1992), the Bette Midler version of “Gypsy” (1993), “Losing Isaiah” (1995) and “Steal Big Steal Little” (1995). However, he was probably most familiar to movie audiences for his brief but memorable turn as alien jeweler Gentle Rosenburg in the original “Men in Black” (1997). On television, he made appearances on such shows as “The Equalizer,” “227,” “L.A. Law,” “Frazier,” “The X-Files” and “Early Edition.”

For all those film and television appearances, Nussbaum’s first love was the Chicago theatre world and even into his 90s, he was still taking on significant parts, including a turn as Albert Einstein in 2017 in Mamet’s Relativity. In 2019, he received a lifetime achievement award from the League of Chicago Theaters and that very same year found himself appearing as the gravedigger in an acclaimed production of Hamlet. My guess is that of the two, he probably appreciated the latter more. He was a true actor—one who genuinely was all about the work—and he left a mark on the Chicago theater scene that will last as long as it continues to exist.