Elliott Gould

He then traveled across the Atlantic to appear in the Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Comden and Green classic On the Town at the Prince of Wales Theater on London’s legendary West End.He followed this as the court jester in the CBS TV special of Once Upon a Mattress starring Carol Burnett and staged by Joe Layton. He toured with Liza Minnelli in The Fantasticks directed by Word Baker, with Shelly Winters in LUV, directed by Ronnie Graham, and also appeared in the original Broadway productions of Jules Feiffer’s Little Murders produced by Alexander H. Cohen and Drat the Cat, written by Ira Levin and Milton Schafer before discovering the camera and embarking on a motion picture career.

The first of nearly 70 feature films was The Confession (now entitled Quick, Let’s Get Married on late night television), starred Ginger Rogers and was directed by William Deterlie. He played the title role in The Night They Raided Minsky’s, produced by Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear and directed by William Freidkin.His performance in the role of Ted in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice earned him an Academy Award nomination followed by the role of Trapper John in Robert Altman’s original classic motion picture MASH.Gould was voted the Outstanding Male Newcomer by the National Association of Theater Owners, and after scoring in the Columbia Pictures release of Getting Straight with Candace Bergen and Harrison Ford,landed on the cover of Time magazine as Man From MASH and Star for an Uptight Age. He was chosen to be the first American born artist to appear in the great Ingmar Bergman’s first English speaking film The Touch. He also appeared in Move, Little Murders (which he produced) and Universal Pictures’ I Love My Wife, produced by David Wolper, written by Robert Kauffman and directed by Mel Stuart with Brenda Vaccaro.

Gould played the legendary Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye directed by Robert Altman and written by Leigh Bracket, Busting with Robert Blake, SPY*S with Donald Sutherland, Who with Trevor Howard, California Split with George Segal and Harry and Walter Go to New York with James Caan, Diane Keaton and Michael Caine, directed by Mark Rydeel. He appeared as himself for Robert Altman in Nashville for Paramount Pictures as well as in The Player, and co-starred in Joseph E. Levine’s epic production of A Bridge Too Far directed by Richard Attenborough with Laurence Olivier, Liv Ullman, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, and Robert Redford. Among other films, Gould starred in Capricorn One, The Silent Partner, Matilda, Whiffs, I Will, I Will…For Now,Escape to Athena, Falling in Love Again, The Lady Vanishes with Angela Landsbury and Cybil  Shephard,The Muppet Movie, It’s Up to You and played the title roles in The Last Flight of Noah’s Arc and The Devil and Max Devlin with Bill Cosby, both for Walt Disney Studios.He hosted six episodes of Saturday Night Live, the first of which won the show its first Emmy Award, and appeared on a seventh segment with Tom Hanks, Steve Martin and Paul Simon. Gould starred in the CBS comedy series of E.R., which helped to launch the careers of Jason Alexander, Mary MacDonald and George Clooney. He also starred in the miniseries Rules of Marriage with Elizabeth Montgomery, Blood Lines with Mimi Rogers, Stolen, One Husband with Valerie Harper, and Vanishing Act with Mike Farrell and Margot Kidder. He has guested on such prominent series as L.A. Law and Touched By An Angel and starred with Michael McKeon in Billy Crystal’s HBO series Sessions. E received critical attention as Harry Greenberg in Columbia Pictures’ presentation of the Barry Levinson production of Bugsy with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. He also received rave reviews for his work on the independent feature film John. He is currently filming the New Line feature film Two Brothers, which he stars along side Edward Norton and Beverly D’Angelo. His most recent films are the yet to be released Hotel Shanghi, based on the Vicki Baum novel, Kicking and Screaming, Johns and Doggin’ Around, which was made for the BBC in London. Gould has also been featured in episodes of Shelly Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theater, Tall Tales and Legends, and Frog and Frog II for the award winning Wonder Works series, and in the Children’s Television Workshop prime-time special with the Electric Company entitled Out to Lunch. He can currently be seen on the NBC hit sit-com Friends in the recurring role of Jack Geller, dad of twenty something coffeehouse habitués Ross and Monica.