Alan Mandell, Esteemed Actor and Interpreter of Samuel Beckett Plays, Dies at 98

Alan Mandell, the distinguished stage veteran known for his interpretations of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist plays going back to a landmark 1957 production of Waiting for Godot inside San Quentin State Prison, has died. He was 98.

Mandell died Tuesday at his home in Westwood, his son, Peter Mandell, and daughter-in-law, Sarah Mandell, told The Hollywood Reporter .

In films, the Toronto native played the aging rabbi whose counsel consists solely of lyrics from the Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” in the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man (2009), and he appeared for John Cameron Mitchell in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) and Shortbus (2006). Related Stories Business CNN Targets Cord-Cutters In Canada With Streaming Launch Lifestyle Sally Rooney's Books Pulled From U.K. Shelves Amid Controversy Over Palestine Action Support

On television, he could be seen on episodes of Cannon , The Six Million Dollar Man , Baretta , Eight Is Enough , Sisters and Grey’s Anatomy .

In November 1957, Mandell was a member of the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop, led by Jules Irving and Herbert Blau, when he portrayed the slave Lucky in a performance of Waiting for Godot for 1,400 inmates in San Quentin. (The production would serve as the introduction to Martin Esslin’s influential 1961 book Theatre of the Absurd .)

From that, Mandell co-founded the San Quentin Drama Workshop with inmate Rick Cluchey, who would become an actor and playwright, and the pair would guide many other plays at the prison over the years.

Later, Beckett himself would direct Mandell in Waiting for Godot and Endgame (as Nagg) in Europe, and their relationship would last well into the 1980s.