Nehemiah Persoff, who appeared as Barbra Streisand’s rabbi father in “Yentl” and had roles in hundreds of films and TV series including “Some Like It Hot” and “On the Waterfront,” died Tuesday in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
He was 102.His death was confirmed by his daughter, Dahlia.
Beyond prolific, Persoff racked up almost 200 credits in film and TV in a career that began in the very earliest days of television.Persoff broke through in the 1959 movie “Some Like It Hot,” in which he played mobster boss Little Bonaparte.
(The actor had been the last surviving member of the cast.) Early in his career, he was known for playing villainous tough guys, such as in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man,” starring Henry Fonda, and “Al Capone,” starring Rod Steiger, in which he had a substantial role as Johnny Torrio, the mobster who mentored Capone only to be replaced by him.
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