Herb Edelman as an announcer for Armed Forces Radio, he enrolled in Brooklyn College as a theater student, but eventually dropped out. He later worked as a hotel manager and as a taxicab driver. One of his fares was director Mike Nichols, who in 1963 cast Edelman in his breakthrough Broadway role, as the bewildered telephone repairman in Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park". Edelman reprised his role in the 1967 film version (starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda). He appeared in the movie versions of Simon's "The Odd Couple" (1968) and "California Suite" (1978). He also appeared in an installment of
Jane Fonda totally that her performance is very pure -- unadorned by "acting." She never stands outside Bree, she gives herself over to the role, and yet she isn't lost in it -- she's fully in control, and her means are extraordinarily economical. She has somehow got to a plane of acting at which even the closest closeup never reveals a false thought and, seen on the movie streets a block away, she's Bree, not Jane Fonda, walking toward us. There isn't another young dramatic actress in American films who can touch her." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" also praised Fonda's