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Al Waxman

Al Waxman was a Toronto actor whose career moved easily between radio, television, film and the stage. Born in the city on March 2, 1935, to Jewish immigrants from Poland, he grew up around Melinda Lunch, the small restaurant owned and operated by his parents. He attended Toronto’s Central Technical School and began performing on CBC Radio at just twelve years old. His defining television breakthrough came in 1975 with CBC’s King of Kensington, where he played Larry King. The role established Waxman as a major presence in Canadian television, but it was far from the only side of him audiences would see. During the 1980s, he starred in the CBS drama Cagney & Lacey as Lt. Bert Samuels, a character whose gruffness was balanced by an underlying warmth. Waxman could also bring weight to smaller film roles. In Atlantic City, he appeared as a wealthy cocaine buyer with apparently limitless cash, while Class of 1984 brought him back to the halls of Central Technical School—this time on screen as Detective Stewiski. Waxman continued appearing in film and television through the 1990s, while devoting more of his time to acting and directing in the theatre. His work at the Stratford Festival included a critically acclaimed 1997 performance as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. He later directed The Diary of Anne Frank there in 2000 and was preparing to play Shylock in The Merchant of Venice before his death in 2001. His television work also included hosting the 1991 program Missing Treasures: The Search for Our Lost Children, which profiled missing children in Canada. In 1997, he received the Gemini Award for best actor for the television film Net Worth. A founding member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, Waxman also published the memoir That’s What I Am in 1999; it received a Canadian Jewish Book Award. Across those varied roles, he remained recognizably direct, grounded and at home in stories built around working lives and complicated authority figures.