Saul Rubinek
He didn't choose to be an actor, Saul Rubinek claims, it was acting that chose him. For over 50 years he has appeared on stage, film and television in a career that has seen him play roles as diverse as that of W. W. Beauchamp opposite Clint Eastwood in the Oscar-winning Unforgiven to Donny Douglas, Daphne's boyfriend in the NBC hit sitcom Frasier.
Rubinek was born in a refugee camp in Germany following the Second World War where his father ran a Yiddish theatre company. His parents emigrated first to Montreal and later to Ottawa where Saul's physical reaction to anti-Semitic taunts compelled his father to enrol him in theatre school. Saul's talents as a thespian blossomed and by his early 20s was working under Jean Gascon and John Hirsch at Stratford.
When Hirsch moved to the CBC a few years later, he opened the doors to young actors like Saul Rubinek and Rubinek took advantage. When he was still in his 20s Rubinek made a decision that his colleagues called traitorous: he left Canada and moved to New York. Rubinek found work on Broadway and it wasn't long before he moved again, this time to Hollywood where he was featured in Oliver Stone's Nixon and opposite Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts in And The Band Played On.
Rubinek's career was in full swing alternating between feature films and sit television series like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law. At 63, Rubinek's career shows no signs of waning; he's currently starring in the TNT series Leverage and Warehouse 13, on Universal's Syfy network. Ken Rockburn spoke to Saul Rubinek in New York.
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