F. Murray Abraham

F. Murray Abraham (born October 24, 1939, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is an American actor who performed generally in small parts and character roles onstage and in film before coming to wider notice after winning an Academy Award for his portrayal of Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (1984).

Abraham grew up in El Paso, Texas, and was introduced to acting by a teacher in high school. He studied theatre at the University of Texas at El Paso for two years and then moved to Los Angeles. He made his first professional stage appearance in the premiere of Ray Bradbury’s play The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1965) in Los Angeles. Abraham then moved to New York City to study under Uta Hagen. He made his Off-Broadway debut in 1966 in The Fantasticks and first appeared on Broadway in 1968 in The Man in the Glass Booth. While he continued to make stage appearances during the early 1970s, including a part in the 1972–73 Broadway comedy 6 Rms Riv Vu, he also began working in film and television during that time. Abraham appeared in the 1971 movie They Might Be Giants and on TV in Nightside (1973), a pilot for a series that was not produced. He appeared in the Broadway farce The Ritz (1975–76) and played the same role in the 1976 film version of the play. Abraham performed in the Off-Broadway production of David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1976) and in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s productions of John Guare’s Landscape of the Body (1977) and of The Master and Margarita (1978).

Abraham had the lead role in the short Broadway run of Teibele and Her Demon (1979), and in 1980 he starred in a Baltimore production of Cyrano de Bergerac and Off-Broadway in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. He won critical notice for his performances in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker in 1982 and in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in 1983. Abraham played Omar in Brian De Palma’s film Scarface (1983) before his surprise casting in Amadeus. His controlled multidimensional performance in the latter movie won him both the Oscar and the Golden Globe Award for best actor.

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Following his wins, Abraham’s stage career nevertheless continued to outstrip his film career. He had leading parts in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1986) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1987) Off-Broadway and played the title character in Macbeth on Broadway (1986–87). He also he played Pozzo in a 1988 revival of Waiting for Godot. His later stage credits included the Broadway production It’s Only a Play (2014–15).

After performing as Bernardo Gui in the film The Name of the Rose (1986), Abraham returned to a career of mostly small parts in minor movies, punctuated by appearances in more notable films, among them Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). He also appeared in Wes Anderson’s comedies The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and the stop-motion animated Isle of Dogs (2018), and he provided the voice of the villainous Grimmel in How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World (2019). His later films included Lady and the Tramp (2019) and The Magic Flute (2022).

In addition, Abraham had recurring roles in the TV shows The Good Wife (2009–16) and Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet (2020– ). He also played a CIA operative in the series Homeland (2011–18), which starred Claire Danes. In 2022 Abraham appeared in the second season of the anthology series The White Lotus, portraying a flirtatious grandfather on vacation with his son and grandson.