Oscar-nominated actor George Segal dies at age 87

Oscar-nominated actor, George Segal, who sparred with Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and won laughs in the TV sitcom The Goldbergs, has died at the age of 87.

“The family is devastated to announce that this morning George Segal passed away due to complications from bypass surgery,” his wife Sonia Segal said in a statement on Tuesday.

Charming and witty, Segal excelled in dramatic and comedic roles, most recently playing laid-back widower Albert “Pops” Solomon on the comedy series The Goldbergs.

“Today we lost a legend,” Adam F. Goldberg, who created the TV series that was based on his own life, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

“It was a true honor being a small part of George Segal’s amazing legacy. By pure fate, I ended up casting the perfect person to play Pops. Just like my grandfather, George was a kid at heart with a magical spark,” Goldberg added.

Segal’s long-time manager Abe Hoch said in a statement that he would miss his friend’s “warmth, humor, camaraderie, and friendship. He was a wonderful human.”

George Segal was born on Feb. 13, 1934, in Great Neck, Long Island in New York. Although his ancestors were Russian Jewish immigrants, his family was not religious.

After seeing the film This Gun for Hire when he was 9 years old, he knew he wanted to act. Following a stint in the Army and graduating from Columbia University with a drama degree.

Segal’s acting career began on the New York stage and television in the early 1960s. He quickly moved into films, playing an artist in the star-studded ensemble drama Ship of Fools and a scheming, wily American corporal in a World War Two prisoner-of-war camp in King Rat in 1965.

Two years later he earned an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor in the harrowing, marital drama Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

“Elizabeth and Richard were the king and queen of the world at that moment and there was a lot of buzz about it,” Segal told The Daily Beast in 2016. “For me, there was a great satisfaction of being involved with it.”

But it was in comedies that Segal cemented his star status in a string of films in the 1970s with A-list directors and co-stars such as Glenda Jackson, who won an Oscar for her performance in A Touch of Class.

He also starred opposite Jane Fonda in Fun with Dick and Jane, fell for the charms of Barbra Streisand in The Owl and the Pussycat, and played Natalie Wood’s husband in The Last Married Couple in America.

Segal said he did not contemplate retirement because people kept offering him interesting roles.

“Being in your 70s is OK but, when you get to your 80s, you get creaky,” he told Variety. “I’ve got my second wind — although I’m not going as fast as I used to.”

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