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 his early roles, Fonda played a clever, ambitious television news reporter. Vincent Canby, writing for the "New York Times", singled out Fonda's performance for praise: "The three stars are splendid, but maybe Miss Fonda is just a bit more than that. Her performance is not that of an actress in a star's role, but that of an actress creating a character that happens to be major within the film. She keeps getting better and better." This role also earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. The same year, she starred in the western adventure-romance film "The Electric