Character actor covered gamut on stage, screen

Lou Jacobi, an actor who was known for comic roles and won praise in dramatic ones over a long career in the theater and movies, including Woody Allen’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex” and Barry Levinson’s “Avalon,” has died. He was 95.

The Canadian-born actor died Friday at his home in Manhattan. His death was confirmed by Leonie Nowitz, a social worker who had been overseeing his care.

Jacobi made his Broadway debut in 1955 in “The Diary of Anne Frank,” playing one of the occupants of the Amsterdam attic where the Franks were hiding. He played the same role, Hans Van Daan, in the 1959 film version.

He was in nine other Broadway plays, including Paddy Chayefsky’s “Tenth Man” in 1959 and Neil Simon’s “Come Blow Your Horn” in 1961.

Jacobi appeared in about two dozen other movies, including the 1981 Blake Edwards comedy “Arthur.” He had a memorable cross-dressing scene in “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex” (1972) and played one of the immigrant Krichinsky family members trying to assimilate in Baltimore in “Avalon” (1980).

His last movie was “I.Q.” in 1994. He played the logician Kurt Godel, one of Albert Einstein’s professor friends at Princeton.

He also appeared in many TV shows, including “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “That Girl.” In the early 1970s, he was a regular on “The Dean Martin Show” on NBC for two seasons.

Jacobi was born Louis Harold Jacobovitch in 1913 in Toronto and began acting as a boy.

He married Ruth Ludwin in 1957. She died in 2004.

He is survived by a brother, Rabbi Avrom Jacobovitch, and a sister, Rae Gold, both of Toronto.

--

news.obits@latimes.com