Paul Michael Glaser Movies
The possessor of a BA from Tulane University and an MA from Boston University, Paul Michael Glaser first appeared on a New York stage in Joseph Papp's 1968 production of Rockabye Hamlet.. Billed in the early stages of his career as Michael Glaser, he was featured on Broadway in The Man in the Glass Booth, in such films as Fiddler on the Roof (1971, as Perchik) and Butterflies are Free (1972) and on the TV soap operas Love is Many Splendored Thing and Love of Life. He reverted to his three-barreled name when cast as Detective David Starsky, one of two hotshot young police officers who jetted around an unnamed crime-ridden municipality in their bright red 1974 Ford Torino and attempted to wipe the streets clean of the criminal element, on the long-running (1975-79) TV cop series Starsky and Hutch.
After 1984, Glaser cut back sharply on his acting appearances to concentrate on directing such TV movies as Amazons and such theatrical features as The Running Man (1987), The Air Up There (1994) and Kazaam (1996), and episodes of series programs including The Agency, Judging Amy, Third Watch and Las Vegas. In 2003, Glaser landed a small role opposite Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in Nancy Meyers's romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give. The following year, Warners released a tongue-in-cheek big screen cinematization of Starsky in which Ben Stiller played the character of David and Owen Wilson played his partner, Detective Ken Hutchinson. Glaser and longtime series co-star David Soul made cameo appearances at the end of the film, billed respectively as The Old Starsky and The Old Hutch.
In the late 1980s Glaser's life was torn apart by the most appalling of tragedies. As the result of a contaminated blood transfusion, his wife Elizabeth and their two children were infected with the HIV virus, and in 1988, their daughter Ariel died at age seven. Subsequently, Paul and Elizabeth became the most adamant, tireless, and omnipresent AIDS awareness activists in any profession. In 1988 the two helped found the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Sadly, Elizabeth died in December of 1994. Since then, the Elizabeth Glaser Scientists Award was established to fund research into the AIDS virus. Glaser subsequently remarried producer/writer Tracy Barone in 1996; after a little over a decade together, the two filed for divorce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Leonard Gershe based his play Butterflies are Free on a real-life blind attorney. The film version stars Edward Albert as Don Baker, a self-reliant, sightless young man who becomes the object of affection for kooky Jill (Goldie Hawn). Spending most of the film in nothing but her underwear, Jill makes love to Don, then tries to help him break free from the smothering influence of his mother, a children's-story writer (Eileen Heckart). The situation grows tense when Jill's boyfriend (Paul Michael Glaser) enters the scene. Eileen Heckart won an Academy Award for her performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Edward Albert, (more)
- 1972
After serving 12 years for a crime actually committed by his brother Dmitri Kampacalas (Scott Marlowe), Jason (played by future Starsky and Hutch costar Paul Michael Glaser), is released from prison. Returning home, Jason is secure in the belief that, per agreement, Dimitri has told the truth to their father Cadmus (Nehemiah Persoff),a Greek restauranteur. But Cadmus is still convinced that Jason is guilty--and is grimly unforgiving towards his "jailbird" son. The tragic consequences stemming from this crisis bring Detectives Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) onto the scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Norman Jewison's adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical is set in the Ukranian ghetto village of Anatevka (the film was actually lensed in Yugoslavia). Israeli actor Topol repeats his London stage role as Tevye the milkman, whose equilibrium is constantly being challenged by his poverty, the prejudicial attitudes of non-Jews, and the romantic entanglements of his five daughters. Whenever the weight of the world becomes too much for him, Tevye carries on lengthy conversations with God, who does not answer but is at least more willing to listen than the milkman's remonstrative wife Golde. After arranging a marriage between his oldest daughter Tzeitel and wealthy butcher Lazar Wolf, Tevye is forced to do some quick rearranging when the girl falls in love with poor tailor Motel Kamzoil. Fancying himself more broad-minded than his gentile oppressors, Tevye cannot accept the notion that his other daughter Chava would want to marry Fyedka, a non-Jew. And after shouting the praises of "tradition," Tevye must change his tune-and his entire life-when he and his neighbors are forced out of Anatevka by the Czar's minions. Topol's co-stars include Norma Crane as Golde, Yiddish theater legend Molly Picon as Yente the matchmaker, and Leonard Frey as Motel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Topol, Norma Crane, (more)
