Martin Landau, 89, a character actor who starred in the 1960s television show “Mission: Impossible” and won an Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi in the movie “Ed Wood,” died Saturday, his publicist Dick Guttman said Sunday night.
Landau died at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles following
“unexpected complications during a short hospitalization,”
Guttman said in a statement according to CNN.
Landau was born June 28, 1928, in Brooklyn and worked as a cartoonist for the New York Daily News before becoming an actor, according to the Internet Movie Database.
Landau’s career spanned the decades. In 1957 he had a part in the play “Middle of the Night,” with Edward G. Robinson and ended up on the West Coast, according to the Internet Movie Database.
To the general public, Landau was best known to the public for playing master of disguise Rollin Hand for a top-secret spy team in the 1960s series “Mission: Impossible,” in which his then-wife Barbara Bain also starred.
Landau’s first big movie role was in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” He also had supporting roles in “Cleopatra” and other movies and appeared in numerous television shows, including “The Twilight Zone.”
Near the end of his career, he played Bob Ryan, an aging movie producer in the HBO series “Entourage.” The character’s catchphrase, with an exaggerated idea followed by “would that be something you’d be interested in?” became something of a pop culture joke.
Guttman said funeral services will be private followed by a memorial service in August or September.
