A. Paulsen, 78: Versatile Actor Often Portrayed
Villains
From a Times Staff Writer
April 28,
2004
Albert Paulsen, an Emmy-winning television, film and Broadway
character actor best remembered for playing charismatic gangsters and sinister
villains, has died. He was 78.
Paulsen died Sunday in Los Angeles
of natural causes.
The versatile actor, who frequently worked at
such small theaters as the Odyssey in West L.A., earned his Emmy for supporting
actor in 1964 for the previous year's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."
Jason Robards had the starring role in the production that aired on "Bob Hope
Presents the Chrysler Theatre."
Paulsen, much in demand for
television spy and detective series in the 1960s, was working on an episode of
"The Man From U.N.C.L.E." when the award was announced. When series star Robert
Vaughn realized that Paulsen had not formally been presented with the Emmy, he
obtained the statuette and handed it to Paulsen in a special ceremony on the
"U.N.C.L.E." set.
The busy character actor had flown to Los Angeles
to work on the "U.N.C.L.E." script after appearing on Broadway with Geraldine
Page in Anton Chekhov's "The Three Sisters." He also acted in a motion picture
version of that play.
An avid reader, Paulsen so revered novelist
Vladimir Nabokov that he created a one-man show, "Nabokov," which premiered at
the Odyssey Theatre in 1982 before touring the country. A Times reviewer called
it "a rewarding and unusual one-man show" and wrote: "The performance is gentle,
infectious, touched occasionally with a certain absent-minded charm that brings
to life for 70 minutes one of the century's great
writers."
Born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, of Norwegian descent,
Paulsen grew up studying in German boarding schools and attended college in
Ecuador — which proved to be good preparation for playing myriad character roles
with variously accented English.
After immigrating to the United
States and serving in World War II, he used the G.I. Bill to study acting at the
Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner and at the Actors Studio with Lee
Stras- berg.
Paulsen made his motion picture debut in John
Frankenheimer's 1962 "The Manchurian Candidate."
The actor also had
key character roles in such films as "The Next Man" with Sean Connery in 1976
and "Eyewitness" with William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver in 1981.
On
television, Paulsen had guest roles on such popular series as "Combat," "77
Sunset Strip," "The Untouchables," "The F.B.I.," "I Spy," "The Rockford Files,"
"Hawaii Five-O" and "Mission: Impossible."
He is survived by a
brother, Juan.
Services will be
private.
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