Joseph Bernard (born Fieldman; December 12, 1923 – April 3, 2006) was an American actor and acting teacher who appeared in 25 Broadway plays and several movies and TV appearances in the 1950s through 1970s. Bernard was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants Bernard Fieldman, a suitcase maker, and Lenya Kaplan, from

Pinsk Pinsk (; , ; ; ; ) is a city in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Pinsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. It is located in the historical region of Polesia, at the confluence of t ...

1930 United States census The 1930 United States census, conducted by the Census Bureau one month from April 1, 1930, determined the resident population of the United States to be 122,775,046, an increase of 13.7 percent over the 106,021,537 persons enumerated during t ...

, He studied at New York's

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

with acting teacher

Stella Adler Stella Adler (February 10, 1901 – December 21, 1992) was an American actress and acting teacher. A member of Yiddish Theater's Adler dynasty, Adler began acting at a young age. She shifted to producing, directing, and teaching, founding the ...

. One of his New School classmates was

Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Widely regarded as one of the greatest cinema actors of the 20th century,''Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia''

. Bernard was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in the D-Day invasion of France. After the war, he appeared in the play ''Winter Soldiers'' and then ''Skipper Next to God'', directed by

Lee Strasberg Lee Strasberg (born Israel Strassberg; November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American acting coach and actor. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed ...

and starring

John Garfield John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle; March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in New York City. In the early 1930s, he became a member of ...

, with whom he became friends. Garfield was Bernard's best man at his marriage to his wife, Bina, whom he wed in 1952. Bina died in 2001. Bernard appeared in '' Murder, Inc.'', the

Stanley Kramer Stanley Earl Kramer (September 29, 1913February 19, 2001) was an American film director and producer, responsible for making many of Hollywood's most famous " message films" (he called his movies ''heavy dramas'') and a liberal movie icon.

film '' Judgment at Nuremberg'' (1961), in which he played an assistant to the American prosecutor, played by Richard Widmark, and a number of other films that included '' Ice Station Zebra''. His television roles included appearances on ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

'', ''

The Twilight Zone ''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology series, anthology television series created by Rod Serling in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described ...

'' (in the 1961 episode '' The Shelter)'', and '' Mission: Impossible''. In 1968, he became an executive director and teacher at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in Hollywood. He moved to

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

in 1979 and established the Joseph Bernard Acting Studio. In addition to directing episodes of ''

The Flying Nun ''The Flying Nun'' is an American fantasy television, fantasy sitcom television series about a community of nuns, which included one who could fly when the wind caught her cornette. It was produced by Screen Gems for American Broadcasting Comp ...

'' TV series, Joseph wrote both stage plays and screenplays. His original theater production ''Take Off Your Clothes, I'll Make You A Star'', based on his experiences as an acting teacher, had runs in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Bernard and his son, writer/producer Sam Bernard, collaborated on the screenplay for the feature film '' Payback'' (1995) for

Trimark Pictures Trimark Pictures was an American production company that specialized in the production and distribution of television and home video motion pictures. The company was formed in 1984 by Mark Amin as Vidmark Entertainment with Vidmark Inc. (later T ...

Filmography

References

External links

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Joseph Bernard
(Aveleyman) 1923 births 2006 deaths American male film actors United States Army personnel of World War II American male stage actors American male television actors Male actors from Brooklyn Military personnel from New York City United States Army soldiers 20th-century American male actors American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent {{US-screen-actor-1920s-stub