20 Movie Talents We Lost In 2017

Brooklyn born actor Martin Landau perfected his art at the Actors Studio alongside King of Cool Steve McQueen before getting his big Hollywood break with supporting roles in films like Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller North by Northwest and the 1963 epic Cleopatra.

Although best known for playing master of disguise Rollin Hand in the TV series Mission: Impossible, his film career made a comeback in the late 1980s with Academy Award nominated roles in Francis Ford Coppola’s biopic Tucker: The Man and His Dream and Woody Allen’s existential comedy Crimes and Misdemeanours.

In 1995, he scooped the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood before teaming up with the director once more in 2012 when he voiced scary science teacher Mr Rzykruski in Frankenweenie.

Up until his death last July, Landau helped inspire generations of new talent in his role as artistic director of the Hollywood branch of the Actors Studio.