Jerry Adler, the quintessential Broadway backstage veteran who became an unlikely television star in his later years, died peacefully in his sleep on August 23, 2025, at the age of 96. His death, confirmed by the Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York and family representatives, marks the end of a remarkable journey that spanned more than seven decades in the entertainment industry, both behind the curtains and in front of the camera.
Born on February 4, 1929, in Brooklyn, New York, Adler was seemingly destined for show business. His father, Philip Adler, was a general manager for the famed Group Theatre and numerous Broadway productions, while his cousin, Stella Adler, became one of the most influential acting teachers in history. "I’m a creature of nepotism," Jerry Adler once quipped to TheaterMania in 2015, recalling how his father called him at Syracuse University to offer him a job as assistant stage manager for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. "I skipped school."
Adler’s early career was defined by a relentless work ethic and a knack for organization. He worked behind the scenes on more than 50 Broadway productions, including the original 1956 staging of My Fair Lady with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, The Apple Tree in 1966, and The Homecoming in 1967. He collaborated with legends such as Marlene Dietrich, Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn, Angela Lansbury, and Orson Welles. His backstage stories, like negotiating with construction workers for Hepburn’s matinee performances, became the stuff of Broadway lore. "She would like to stop work on the building when she sings this song. They thought I was a [expletive] lunatic," Adler told the Hartford Courant in 2011, describing Hepburn’s hands-on approach to ensuring quiet during her performance.
Despite these high-profile collaborations, Adler considered himself on the twilight of a "mediocre career" by the 1980s, as he told The New York Times in 1992. Broadway was in a slump, prompting him to move to California, where he worked on television productions like the soap opera Santa Barbara. Retirement seemed imminent—until a twist of fate changed everything.
Donna Isaacson, casting director for the 1992 Joe Pesci film The Public Eye and a longtime friend of one of Adler’s daughters, urged him to audition for a hard-to-cast role. Director Howard Franklin, after seeing Adler’s audition, reportedly had "chills." Adler, who had spent years on the other side of the audition table, suddenly found himself at the beginning of an acting career in his 60s. "I’d never acted before. I’d never entertained the idea of acting; it was an unusual thing. But I was getting ready to retire from the production end, anyway. So it became kind of interesting," Adler recalled in 2015, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
His onscreen debut in a 1991 episode of Brooklyn Bridge led to a string of roles in television and film. But it was his portrayal of Herman "Hesh" Rabkin, Tony Soprano’s trusted advisor and a Jewish loan shark on HBO’s The Sopranos, that cemented his place in pop culture. Adler appeared in all six seasons of the groundbreaking series, originally cast for just a cameo. "When David [Chase] was going to do the pilot for ‘The Sopranos’ he called and asked me if I would do a cameo of Hesh. It was just supposed to be a one-shot," Adler told Forward in 2015. "But when they picked up the show they liked the character, and I would come on every fourth week."
Adler’s late-in-life acting renaissance was not limited to The Sopranos. He played law partner Howard Lyman on CBS’s The Good Wife, NYFD station chief Sidney Feinberg on FX’s Rescue Me, Rabbi Alan Schulman on Northern Exposure, and appeared in series like Mad About You, Transparent, and Broad City. His film credits included Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery, J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year, and Andrew Ahn’s Driveways, the latter filmed in his nineties.
Adler’s Broadway journey came full circle when he returned to the stage as an actor in Elaine May’s Taller Than a Dwarf in 2000 and again in Larry David’s Fish in the Dark in 2015. "I do it because I really enjoy it. I think retirement is a road to nowhere," Adler told Forward. "I wouldn’t know what to do if I were retired. I guess if nobody calls anymore, that’s when I’ll be retired. Meanwhile this is great."
In 2024, Adler published his memoir, Too Funny for Words: Backstage Tales from Broadway, Television and the Movies. The book, brimming with anecdotes from his decades-long career, offered readers a rare look at the inner workings of Broadway and Hollywood. "I’m ready to go at a moment’s notice," he told CT Insider that year, still open to new roles even in his mid-90s.
Adler’s personal life was as rich as his professional one. He married psychologist Joan Laxman in 1994, and together they relocated from Connecticut back to New York City in his later years. He is survived by Joan and his four daughters: Alisa, Amy, Laura, and Emily, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Fox News Digital.
For a man who once thought he was "too goofy-looking" to act, Adler found the transition to being recognized in public both strange and amusing. "You spend your whole career backstage. Nobody knows who you are or even knows your name. They don’t know anything about you. And then you do a television show and suddenly you’re a celebrity and everyone knows your face. It’s so weird," he reflected in a 2017 interview, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Perhaps Adler himself summed it up best in a 1992 interview with The New York Times: "I’m immortal." Thanks to his work—onstage, backstage, and onscreen—his legacy will indeed endure for generations to come.
