Please Rewind Talent Wall

Abraham Benrubi

Abraham Benrubi is an American film, television and voice actor whose career has found room for long-running supporting parts, larger ensemble roles and animated comedy. Born in Indianapolis on October 4, 1969, he graduated from the city’s Broad Ripple High School before building a screen career marked by dependable, distinctive character work. Early television appearances included Growing Pains, followed by his first major role as Roy R.J. Biggins Jr. on Wings. He also portrayed a young Dan Conner—the character played by John Goodman—in a flashback episode of Roseanne. Those parts led into the role with which many television viewers most readily associate him: desk clerk Jerry Markovic on ER. Benrubi appeared from the medical drama’s first season and served several stretches as a regular cast member between 1994 and 2009. ER made good use of Benrubi as part of a busy ensemble, but Men in Trees gave him more dialogue and greater dramatic depth. From 2006 to 2008, he played bartender and millionaire Ben Tomasson, one of the ABC series’ main characters. He later took on Big Dave Duncan in Happy Town and police desk sergeant Jody “JC” Lightfoot in Memphis Beat, continuing a television career built around characters who help define the texture of a show’s world. His film work includes Mose in Kevin Costner’s 2003 western Open Range. Benrubi has also developed a substantial voice-acting lane, frequently contributing characters to the stop-motion comedy Robot Chicken and working on Titan Maximum. Away from the screen, he is a member of Los Angeles’ Sacred Fools Theater Company. Across hospital corridors, small-town bars, western landscapes and animated worlds, Benrubi has made a career out of being more than familiar background. His best-known roles show an actor comfortable inside an ensemble, but equally capable of taking on added weight when a character moves closer to the center.