F. Murray Abraham
Fahrid Murray Abraham ( born October 24, 1939 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American actor.
Life
Abraham, the son of an Aramaic father and an Italian mother, grew up in El Paso. His father, an auto mechanic, immigrated in 1920 from Syria to the United States. His grandfather was a choir leader in the Syrian Orthodox Church. After studying at the University of Texas at El Paso, he took acting lessons from Uta Hagen and worked at various theaters. In addition, he appeared in several television films and commercials. In 1976, he starred opposite Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in The Untouchables.
In 1983, he embodied in Brian De Palma's Scarface a drug gangsters in Miami.
His breakthrough came in 1984 with the Abraham presentation of Mozart's rival Antonio Salieri in Amadeus Milos Forman, for which he received an Academy Award for Best Actor - and asserted itself in the election against Mozart Actor Tom Hulce.
Since then he has played mainly "rogue roles" as in the film adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose the medieval inquisitor Bernard Gui and a paranoid prosecutor in Bonfire of the Vanities. In comedies such as Loaded Weapon 1 and Last Action Hero, he took his villain image with a lot of self-irony to poke fun. Also in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite, he took a role.
Despite his success, Abraham still plays with fondness theater. He has also stood for Waiting for Godot, together with the comedians Robin Williams and Steve Martin on stage.
He is married and father of two children since 1962.