STUART MARGOLIN

 

Old Age is a MOFO.

Stuart Margolin is an American film, theater, and television actor and director who won two Emmy Awards for playing Evelyn "Angel" Martin on the 1970s television series The Rockford Files. In 1973, he played in Gunsmoke as an outlaw. The next year he played an important role, giving Charles Bronson his first gun in Death Wish. In 1981, Margolin portrayed the character of Philo Sandeen in a recurring role as a Native American tracker in the 1981–1982 television series, Bret Maverick.

Margolin played the recurring character Evelyn "Angel" Martin, the shifty friend and former jailmate of Jim Rockford (played by James Garner) on The Rockford Files, whose various cons and schemes usually got Rockford in hot water. Margolin was earlier paired with James Garner in the Western series Nichols (1971–72), in which he played a character somewhat similar to the Angel character in The Rockford Files. That show lasted for only one season.

Other times Rockford would pay Angel to "hit the streets" and discover information that would help solve a case. Margolin won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for this role, in 1979 and 1980;^[2] he is one of only five actors to win this award twice for the same role.^[3]

In 1969 Margolin wrote and co-produced The Ballad of Andy Crocker, an ABC television movie that was one of the first films to deal with the subject matter of Vietnam veterans "coming home."^[4] He also co-wrote the title song and had an uncredited cameo in the film. Margolin had an uncredited role as the Station Wagon Driver in Heroes, another story about Vietnam veterans dealing with what we now refer to as PTSD.

Margolin and Garner in Rockford Files.

Margolin played Rabbi David Small in the 1976 movie, Lanigan's Rabbi, based on the series of mystery novels written by Harry Kemelman. Scheduling conflicts prevented him from continuing the role in the short-lived TV series of the same name that aired in 1977 as part of The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie, where Small was played by Bruce Solomon.^{[citation needed]}

Margolin appeared in episodes of the television series M*A*S*H ("Bananas, Crackers and Nuts" and "Operation Noselift"), The Partridge Family ("Go Directly to Jail" and "A Penny for His Thoughts"), That Girl ("11 Angry Men and That Girl" as a juror, and "7¼ (Part 2)" as Leonard Stanley). The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, an episode of Land of the Giants ("The Mechanical Man"), Twelve O'Clock High ("Mutiny at Ten Thousand Feet"), The Monkees ("Monkees Watch Their Feet"), Love, American Style (in which he was a member of the Love American Style Players; his brother Arnold Margolin was the executive producer of the series), Crazy Like a Fox (playing a similar character to Angel Martin), The Fall Guy (in which he played Ace Cochran in "The Molly Sue"), Magnum, P.I., Hill Street Blues (as bookmaker Andy Sedita in the consecutive episodes "Hacked to Pieces" and "Seoul on Ice"),^[5] and Touched by an Angel ("With God as My Witness").

In May 2009, Margolin appeared on an episode of 30 Rock, opposite Alan Alda;^[6] it was the first time the two actors appeared together since Margolin's appearance on M*A*S*H in 1974.

Margolin appeared in the 2009 CTV/CBS police drama series The Bridge.^[7][8]

Margolin appeared as bail jumper Stanley Wescott in the episode The Overpass (Season 5 Episode 2; 2013) of the Canadian CBC Television series Republic of Doyle, which itself was inspired by The Rockford Files.^[9] While not a wholesale recreation of the Angel Martin character, the Stanley Wescott role sported many similar attributes.^[10] The episode also featured Margolin's stepson Max Martini in the role of Big Charlie Archer.

Margolin appeared in feature films including Kelly's Heroes, Death Wish, Futureworld, The Big Bus and S.O.B.