Nehemiah Persoff
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
| This article is written from the Real World point of view |
 |
Nehemiah Persoff (born 2 August 1919; age 88) is the actor who played Palor Toff in the Next Generation episode "The Most Toys".
A veteran of World War II, Persoff served in the United States Army from 1942 to 1946 before being discharged as a Technician 5th Grade. He then embarked on an acting career and, during his early career, became well-known for his villainous, tough guy roles such as mobsters and gangsters.
He had a recurring role as gangster Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik on TV's The Untouchables and also played a gangster role in the 1959 biopic Al Capone. He even had a small role as a gangster in the classic 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot. His prior film credits included The Harder They Fall and Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, both released in 1956.
He co-starred in the 1961 western adventure The Comancheros. Veteran Trek guest star Michael Ansara had a role in this film. Persoff and Ansara were also a part of the extensive ensemble cast of the 1964 biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told, as was Mark Lenard (TNG: "Sarek").
Persoff has more recently become known for more light-hearted characters, such as Yentl's "Papa" in 1983's Yentl and as the voice of Papa Mousekewitz in the 1986 animated film An American Tail and its sequels. (Christopher Plummer was also a voice on An American Tail; Rene Auberjonois, Tony Jay, and Ron Perlman voiced in one of the direct-to-video sequels.)
Persoff's other feature films include Voyage of the Damned (1976, with Malcolm McDowell) and Twins (1988, with Tony Jay, Robert Harper, Tom McCleister, Dendrie Taylor, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Besides his appearance on The Next Generation, Persoff has appeared on numerous other TV programs, including Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-O, and Fantasy Island (starring Ricardo Montalban).
One of Persoff's earliest film appearances was as the obscure cab driver during Marlon Brando's classic "I coulda been a contender" scene in 1954's On the Waterfront.
Due to a series of health issues, Persoff was forced to retire from acting for the most part in the 1980s. He has since taken up painting, and has created many pieces of art.
