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Lee J. Cobb, one of the premier character actors in American film for three decades in the post-World War II period, was born Leo Jacoby in New York City`s Lower East Side on December 8, 1911. The son of a Jewish newspaper editor, young Leo was a child prodigy in music, mastering the violin and the harmonica. Any hopes of a career as a violin virtuoso were dashed when he broke his wrist, but his talent on the harmonica may have brought him his first professional success. At the age of 16 or 17 he ran away from home to Hollywood to try to break into motion pictures as an actor. He reportedly made his film debut as a member of Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals (their first known movie appearance was in the 1929 two-reeler Boyhood Days), but that cannot be substantiated. However, it`s known that after Leo was unable to find work he returned to New York City, where he attended City College of New York at night to study accounting while acting in radio dramas during the day.

An older Cobb tried his luck in California once more, making his debut as a professional stage actor at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1931. After again returning to his native New York, he made his Broadway debut as a saloonkeeper in a dramatization of Fyodor Dostoyevsky`s Crime and Punishment, but it closed after 15 performances (later in his career, Dostoevsky would prove more of a charm, with Cobb`s role as Father Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1958) garnering him his second Oscar nomination),

Cobb joined the politically progressive Group Theater in 1935 and made a name for himself in Clifford Odets` politically liberal dramas Waiting for Lefty and Til the Day I Die, appearing in both plays that year in casts that included Elia Kazan, who later became famous as a film director. Cobb also appeared in the 1937 Group Theater production of Odets` Golden Boy, playing the role of Mr. Carp, in a cast that also included Kazan, Julius Garfinkle (later better known under his stage name of John Garfield), and Martin Ritt, all of whom later came under the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the heyday of the McCarthy Red Scare hysteria more than a decade later. Cobb took over the role of Mr. Bonaparte, the protagonist`s father, in the 1939 film version of the play, despite the fact that he was not yet 30 years old. The role of a patriarch suited him, and he`d play many more in his film career.

It was as a different kind of patriarch that he scored his greatest success. Cobb achieved immortality by giving life to the character of Willy Loman in the original 1949 Broadway production of Arthur Miller`s Death of a Salesman. His performance was a towering achievement that ranks with such performances as Edwin Booth as Richard III and John Barrymore as Hamlet in the annals of the American theater. Cobb later won an Emmy nomination as Willy when he played the role in a made-for-TV movie of the play (_Death of a Salesman (1966/II) (TV)_ ). Miller said that he wrote the role with Cobb in mind.

Before triumphing as Miller`s Salesman, Cobb had appeared on Broadway only a handful of times in the 1940s, including in Ernest Hemingway`s The Fifth Column (1940), Odets` "Clash by Night" (1942) and the US Army Air Force`s Winged Victory (1943-44). Later he reprised the role of Joe Bonaparte`s father in the 1952 revival of Golden Boy opposite Garfield as his son, and appeared the following year in The Emperor`s Clothes. His final Broa