About Mandy Patinkin
Descended from Jewish immigrants (from Russia and Poland), Patinkin was raised in Conservative Judaism and came from an upper middle class household. He participating in synagogue choirs, going to religious school every day “from the age of seven to 13 or 14,” and going to Camp Sura in Michigan. In 1972, his father passed away from pancreatic cancer.
Following a few radio and television commercials (including one on CBS Radio Mystery Theater in 1974), Patinkin launched his stage career in 1975 by playing Arthur Gower in Trelawny of the “Wells” in New York. Alongside Meryl Streep and John Lithgow, who played Imogen Parrott and Ferdinand Gadd, respectively, Patinkin featured in the film.
In a Broadway revival of Hamlet, starring Sam Waterston, Patinkin played the Player King and Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, from 1975 to 1976. When Patinkin played Che in Patti LuPone’s Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita in 1979, he achieved his first triumph in the musical theater genre.
For his work in Evita, Patinkin went on to win the 1980 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical. He later transitioned to acting in films, appearing in works including Ragtime and Yentl. He made his way back to Broadway in 1984 to play the role of pointillist painter Georges Seurat in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Pulitzer Prize–winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, earning him another Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.
Patinkin performed in the Broadway production of The Secret Garden in 1991, and for that year, he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical.
Additionally, he issued two solo records, Mandy Patinkin (1989) and Dress Casual (1990).
In the middle of the 1990s, Patinkin had keratoconus, a degenerative eye ailment. As a result, he underwent two corneal transplants: the right one in 1997 and the left one in 1998. In 2000, Patinkin made a comeback to Broadway in Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival, for which he received a second Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.
He played Rube Sofer from 2003 to 2004 in the comedy-drama Dead Like Me on Showtime. He performed his one-man show for a six-week run at the Off-Broadway venue Dodger Stages in 2004. Prostate cancer was also identified and treated for him in 2004. He and his son Isaac completed a 265-mile (426 km) charity bike ride to mark his first year of recovery in 2005.
He played the lead role in the brand-new musical Paradise Found at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, which was co-directed by Harold Prince and Susan Stroman. A brief run of the musical took place from May 2010 to June 26, 2010.
During his opening speech at the Annual Convention of the Israeli Left in May 2012, Patinkin discussed his experiences traveling to the West Bank with members of the organization Breaking the Silence.
The Broadway musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, which premieres on August 15, 2017, will star Patinkin as Pierre. He was supposed to replace longtime Hamilton star Okieriete Onaodowan for a limited run through September 3, but Patinkin quit the part before going onstage.
Gideon, the son of Patinkin and Grody, started documenting and photographing their daily activities in 2020 and sharing the photos and videos on various social media platforms. Patinkin served as the narrator of the 2022 Paramount+ miniseries Indivisible:Healing Hate, which chronicled the events that led to the Capitol’s insurrection on January 6.
