Harris Yulin, the acclaimed actor who starred in such Broadway productions as Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Visit and Watch on the Rhine and in the films Scarface, Clear and Present Danger, Ghostbusters, and Training Day, among many others, died June 10 in New York City of cardiac arrest. He was 87.
His death was announced by his family and manager Sue Leibman.
Born November 5, 1937, in Los Angeles, Yulin made his New York stage debut in 1963 in James Saunders’ Next Time I’ll Sing to You. He would not make his Broadway debut until 1980 when he starred in a revival of Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine. Multiple Broadway appearances followed, including The Visit, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Price and, his final, Hedda Gabler in 2001.
With his often by turns menacing and laughing demeanor put to effective use, Yulin appeared in such films as Multiplicity, All Square, Wanderland, Omni Loop, Game 6, and Candy Mountain. On TV, he had a major arc on the Netflix series Ozark, and had memorable roles in Veep, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, And Just Like That, Billions, Divorce and WIOU.
He was Emmy-nominated for his work on Frasier in 1996.
Yulin also had a long and busy career Off Broadway and in regional theater. He performed at The Court Theater in Chicago in Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at The Chautauqua Festival. He starred in Death of A Salesman in Dublin at The Gate Theater, and was in Arthur Miller’s last play Finishing The Picture at The Goodman Theater. He starred in Frost Nixon at Bay Street Theater where he also directed Men’s Lives by Joe Pintauro.
Yulin directed many plays including The Glass Menagerie at Guild Hall, Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful which played an extended run at The Signature Theater in NY, picking up four Lucille Lortel Awards and subsequently moving to The Goodman Theater in Chicago. He also directed This Lime Tree Bower and The Man Who Came to Dinner.
Yulin and Mercedes Ruehl performed in many chamber pieces together on the East End of Long Island, a place where he lived and came to love passionately. Harris was working on new projects with Stacy Keach until his death.
Yulin also directed and taught at Juilliard for eight years, and at The Graduate School of the Arts at Columbia University and at HB Studios in Manhattan.
During the weeks before his death, Yulin was preparing to start production this week in a starring role in the Michael Hoffman directed MGM+ series American Classic with Kevin Kline and Laura Linney. According to his family, Yulin was delighted to be working on this with Hoffman (who had directed Yulin in the film Game 6 in 2005) and so many artists he was close with and admired.
“Harris Yulin was very simply one of the greatest artists I have ever encountered,” said director Michael Hoffman. “His marriage of immense technique with an always fresh sense of discovery, gave his work an immediacy and vitality and purity I’ve experienced nowhere else. And what he was as an actor, he was as a man, the grace, the humility, the generosity. All of us at American Classic have been blessed by our experience with him. He will always remain the beating heart of our show”.
Yulin is survived by wife Kristen Lowman, son-in-law Ted Mineo, nephew Martin Crane, and godchildren Marco and Lara Greenberg. He was predeceased by his daughter, actress Claire Lucido.
A memorial to be held at a later date.
