Career
Abraham made his screen debut as an usher in the George C. Scott comedy They Might Be Giants (1971). Abraham can be seen as one of the undercover police officers along with Al Pacino in Sidney Lumet's Serpico (1973), also as the bad guy in one 3rd Season episode of Kojak, he played a cab driver in the theatrical version of The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), a mechanic in the theatrical version of The Sunshine Boys (1975) and in All the President's Men (1976), as one of the police officers who arrests the Watergate burglars in the offices of the Democratic National Headquarters.
Until his acclaimed role in Amadeus (1984), Abraham was perhaps best known to audiences as a talking bunch of grapes in a series of television commercials for Fruit of the Loom underwear. He worked with Pacino again in the gangster film Scarface in 1983, playing drug dealer Omar Suárez.
Abraham won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (1984).
Immediately after Amadeus, he appeared in The Name of the Rose (1986), in which he played Bernardo Gui, nemesis to Sean Connery's William of Baskerville. His director on the film, Jean-Jacques Annaud, has described Abraham as an "egomaniac" on the set, who considered himself more important than Sean Connery, since Connery did not have an Oscar.
Since Amadeus, he has mainly focused on classical theatre, and has starred in many Shakespearean productions such as Othello and Richard III, as well as many other plays by the likes of Samuel Beckett and Gilbert and Sullivan. Also highlights the role Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (for which he received an Obie Award).
He is also known for his roles in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Ahdar Ru'afo in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Gus Van Sant's Finding Forrester (2000), where he once again played nemesis to Connery.
Abraham has focused on stage work throughout his career, giving notable performances as Pozzo in Mike Nichols's production of Waiting for Godot, Malvolio in Twelfth Night for the New York Shakespeare Festival, and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, for the Off Broadway Theatre For A New Audience (TFANA) in March 2007, which was performed at the Duke Theatre in New York and also at The Swan Theatre, part of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He reprised this role in February 2011, when he replaced Al Pacino in the Public Theater's production. In the 1997/98 Broadway season he starred in the new chamber musical Triumph of Love opposite Betty Buckley, based on Mariveaux's classic comedy. The production did not find a large audience, running 85 performances (after its pre-opening preview period).
Abraham most recently made a guest appearance on the popular television series Saving Grace, on which he played an angel, Matthew and the Law & Order: Criminal Intent, on which he played Dr. Theodore Nichols, father of Det. Zach Nichols. Additionally, Abraham has worked as the primary narrator for the PBS series Nature for 32 episodes spanning 2007–2010.
Read more about this topic: F. Murray Abraham
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