Ned Glass

Ned Glass was a character actor most known for playing nebbishy, neurotic, or mischievous characters with a thick New York accent. In the 1930s, Glass worked mostly in vaudeville and on Broadway as both an actor and a director, until 1937 when his next-door neighbor Moe Howard of the Three Stooges offered him a small and uncredited role in a Three Stooges short film, "Nutty But Nice." Glass went on to take three more uncredited roles in three other Three Stooges films. He made his mark in 1950s television, mostly in variety shows and sitcoms, such as his many roles on "The Jackie Gleason Show," above all in the program's "The Honeymooners" sketches (precursors to Gleason's sitcom "The Honeymooners"); and on "The Phil Silvers Show," with a recurring role as quartermaster Sergeant Pendleton. One of Glass's most notable film roles came in the Academy Award-winning musical "West Side Story," an updated New York City version of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." His character, Doc, an archetypical old-guard New Yorker who runs the local drugstore, served as a mentor and conscience to main character Tony; Glass delivered a memorably poignant and pivotal performance. In 1969, Glass was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for his recurring supporting role as Sol Cooper, the widowed landlord to the title character on the sitcom "Julia," one of the first television series to feature an African American woman, Diahann Carroll, in a leading role.