Cliff Osmond

Cliff Osmond (born Clifford Osman Ebrahim; February 26, 1937 – December 22, 2012) was an American character actor, screenwriter, and acting teacher.

Osmond was born in the Margaret Hague Medical Center in Jersey City, New Jersey, and reared in Union City. He was a graduate of Thomas A. Edison grammar school, Emerson High School, and Dartmouth College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English.

He received his master's degree in Business Administration from the UCLA and advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. in the field of Theater History there.

He starred in four films directed by Billy Wilder, including Irma la Douce; Kiss Me, Stupid; The Fortune Cookie and The Front Page. Osmond played Pap in the 1981 television adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Osmond appeared in over one hundred films and television series. During that period he guest-starred at least half a dozen times on Gunsmoke and in the 1965 episode "Yahoo" of NBC's Laredo. He played a vengeful blind man in the "None So Blind" episode of The Rifleman in 1962, and was cast in "The Gift", (1962) of the original The Twilight Zone. He played a hippie in Ironside (1968) and appeared as well on Here's Lucy (1974), The New Land (1974), as a plumber's apprentice on work release from prison in All in the Family (1975).

As a screenwriter, Osmond was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award for writing an episode of Streets of San Francisco (1973). He also wrote and directed the film The Penitent.

Osmond received a Best Actor award for his UCLA performance of Berthold Brecht's Baal, and the Joseph Jefferson acting award for a Chicago stage appearance in George Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to his acting and writing careers, Osmond was an acting teacher and coach in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the fall of 2004, he was visiting professor in acting and Guest Resident Artist at Georgetown University, teaching two acting courses and directing Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.^{[citation needed]}

In 2010, he wrote a book about his career and acting: Acting Is Living: Exploring the Ten Essential Elements in any Successful Performance.^{[citation needed]}

Osmond died of pancreatic cancer on December 22, 2012.