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
Robert Redford for best new star. He starred in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star. He had a critical and box office hit with "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972), and in 1973 he had the greatest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper "The Sting", for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The popular and acclaimed "All the President's Men" (1976) was a landmark film for Redford. The first film that Redford directed, "Ordinary People" (1980), was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade,