Mike Nussbaum, a stalwart of the Chicago theater community, has died at the age of 99.
According to one report, the veteran Chicago actor died Saturday morning at his home, one week shy of his 100th birthday.
Nussbaum was a fixture on Chicago’s stages for more than half a century, from the Goodman Theater, where his credits included David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” and “Glengarry Glen Ross,” among others, to Northlight Theatre where, in addition to starring in the company’s very first production in 1974, Tom Stoppard’s “Jumpers,” his work included an unforgettable performance as Albert Einstein in Mamet’s “Relativity,” as well as “Visiting Mr. Green,” and “Curve of Departure.”
Other local credits include “Macbeth,” “Hamlet” and “Henry VIII” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and “Death of a Salesman” and “The Old Country” at Steppenwolf Theatre.
In an interview with the Sun-Times in 2019, when he was 95 and appearing in “Hamlet” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Nussbaum reflected on his longevity in the business.
“I’m lucky. Genetic luck. I work out and I try to eat sensibly. I gave up smoking about 50 years ago. It’s just pure luck,” he said.
Holiday season theatergoers may recall his various turns in American Theater Company’s “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.”
“I never considered the prospect that I might be able to continue working,” Nussbaum told the Sun-Times in 2013, about still performing on the stage at the age of 90. “I remember once, Gregory Mosher, the director who was at the Goodman once told me that once an actor reaches 60 it all becomes about memorizing lines and most of them can’t do it anymore.”
A recipient of a New York Drama Desk Award, numerous Jeff Awards, in 2019, Nussbaum received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the League of Chicago Theaters. At the time, he was declared the oldest working member of Actor’s Equity.
“I get more fun out of this than I would out of anything else I love, I would hate to have to give it up,” Nussbaum said of the lifetime achievement honor during an interview with ABC-7.
Nussbaum’s film credits include “Field of Dreams,” “Things Change,” “Fatal Attraction” and “Men in Black.”
His stage work took him to productions across the country including Broadway and around the world, including England’s Royal Shakespeare Company.
Nussbaum was born in Chicago on Dec. 29, 1923, and was raised in the Albany Park neighborhood. During World War II, he served as chief of the message center for General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He began his acting career here in the 1950s in community theater.
“I think that being an actor in Chicago, over a number of years, is the most satisfying life I could imagine,” Nussbaum told the Sun-Times in that 2019 interview. “I found New York and LA to be …” and he paused, choosing his next word carefully, “antithetic to art. The desire for fame, the desire for glory, for money, is overwhelming in both cities. Although I had some success in both cities, I decided my life was more balanced here. I enjoy getting on the bus to go downtown and have someone come up and say ‘I loved you in such-and-such.’”