Jerry Adler, Broadway Stage Manager and Beloved Actor on The Sopranos, Mad About You, Dies at 96

Jerry Adler, a longtime Broadway stage manager who transitioned into an acting career that included prominent roles on Mad About You, The Sopranos, and more, has died at the age of 96.

Adler did more than 50 Broadway shows, beginning with the original production of Gentleman Prefer Blondes, where he was a replacement assistant stage manager. Describing himself to TheaterMania in 2015 as a “creature of nepotism,” he got the job because his father, Philip Adler, was the general manager.

For several years, Adler assisted the legendary Broadway stage manager Samuel “Biff” Liff, who died in 2015. Perhaps the biggest show they worked on was the original 1956 production of My Fair Lady, which starred Rex Harrison and a soon-to-be-star named Julie Andrews. “Rex was a very difficult person. He wanted a certain dressing room, a certain kind of water, it was a whole thing.”

As for Andrews, Adler and Liff were present when director Moss Hart famously dismissed the entire company to spend a full weekend working just with her. “He transformed her from a very frightened young girl into a star,” Adler says. “It was a very psychological weekend, where he kept saying, ‘You are the show. You are the star.’ He made her believe that she was great. And she was.”

In addition, Adler stage managed Of Thee I Sing and served as production supervisor on shows ranging from The Apple Tree to Annie. He directed revivals of My Fair Lady and Camelot, and acted on Broadway only twice, in Elaine May’s Taller Than a Dwarf and Larry David’s Fish in the Dark.

The acting bug bit when Adler was 65 and he become one of the industry’s ubiquitous character actors. Adler’s long list of television shows: Mad About You (as the handyman Mr. Wicker), The Sopranos (as Tony’s consigliere Hesh Rabkin), The West Wing (as Toby’s father Jules) The Good Wife and The Good Fight (as attorney Howard Lyman), Rescue Me (fire chief Sidney Feinberg), Transparent (Moshe Pfefferman), and Broad City (Saul Horowitz). On screen, his most notable appearance was in Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mysteries.

Adler, whose memoir was released in 2024, never retired, though he tried. “It’s a great life, kiddo,” he told us. “When they want you.”