American actor of stage, film and television who earned an Oscar nomination for playing the role of the young faculty member, Nick, in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966). He starred in other hits such as Blume In Love (1973), A Touch Of Class (1973), and more recent films, The Mirror has Two Faces and Flirting With Disaster both in 1996. He was one of the first American film actors to rise to leading man status with an unchanged Jewish surname.
He was a recording artist as well with the album The Yama Yama Man in 1967, playing ragtime Dixieland Jazz, with his ever present banjo. While filming Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, he received an unexpected invitation from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. They were expecting to get an insight into the film from Segal and surprisingly was regaled with anecdotes and Dixieland Jazz banjo which furthered Segal’s career into comedy.
On television, he is best known for his roles as Jack Gallo on Just Shoot Me! (1997–2003) and as Albert “Pops” Solomon on The Goldbergs (2013–2021).
Segal did a stint in the Army from 1956 to 1957. He married on 19 November 1956 and had two kids. After a 1983 divorce from his long-term wife, he married a young woman the same year. She died in 1996. He married for a third time in 1998. He went through a period of cocaine problems. He had a fear of flying.
George Segal died of complications from bypass surgery in Santa Rosa, California on 23 March 2021 at age 87.
Link to Wikipedia biography