Robert Elmer Balaban was born on August 16,1945 and is an American actor, author, comedian, director and producer.
22 Facts About Bob Balaban
2.
Bob Balaban was one of the producers nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for Gosford Park, in which he appeared.
3.
Bob Balaban is most known for his appearances in the Christopher Guest comedies Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration and in the Wes Anderson films Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs and The French Dispatch.
4.
Bob Balaban has directed three feature films, in addition to numerous television episodes and films.
5.
Bob Balaban was born to a Jewish family on August 16,1945, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eleanor and Elmer Bob Balaban, who owned several movie theatres and later was a pioneer in cable television.
6.
Bob Balaban's uncles were dominant forces in the theatre business; they founded the Balaban and Katz Theatre circuit in Chicago, a chain which included the Chicago and Uptown Theatres.
7.
Bob Balaban's maternal grandmother's second husband, Sam Katz, was a vice president at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer beginning in 1936.
8.
Bob Balaban began his college career at Colgate University where he joined Phi Kappa Tau fraternity and then transferred to New York University.
9.
Bob Balaban studied acting at HB Studio under Uta Hagen.
10.
Bob Balaban directed the Randy Quaid horror comedy film Parents, and the Armin Mueller-Stahl drama film The Last Good Time.
11.
Balaban had supporting roles in films such as Absence of Malice, Bob Roberts, Deconstructing Harry, Ghost World, The Majestic, Lady in the Water, and Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration.
12.
Bob Balaban appeared on television in Miami Vice as reporter Ira Stone.
13.
Bob Balaban played Warren Littlefield, a real-world NBC executive, in The Late Shift, a 1996 television movie about the battle between Jay Leno and David Letterman for NBC's The Tonight Show.
14.
In 1999, Bob Balaban made a guest appearance in the sitcom Friends as Phoebe Buffay's father Frank in "The One With Joey's Bag".
15.
Bob Balaban co-produced Gosford Park, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.
16.
Bob Balaban appeared in the movie as Morris Weissman, a Hollywood producer.
17.
Bob Balaban directed the 2009 biopic Georgia O'Keeffe, starring Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons.
18.
Alongside Morgan Freeman and John Lithgow, Bob Balaban appeared onstage in September 2011 as Judge Vaughn Walker in the Broadway debut of the play, 8, which depicts the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage.
19.
In 2012, Bob Balaban directed four episodes of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie, and voiced the audiobook version of Warren Littlefield's autobiography, Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV.
20.
Bob Balaban wrote a series of six children's novels featuring a bionic dog named McGrowl.
21.
Bob Balaban wrote the book, Close Encounters of the Third Kind Diary.
22.
Bob Balaban is married to Lynn Grossman; they have two daughters.