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Aron Tager

Aron Tager’s career moved between acting, voice work and visual art, taking a route far less conventional than a straightforward climb through screen credits. Born in Brooklyn on June 15, 1934, Tager trained as an actor before stepping away from the profession for 25 years to concentrate on painting and sculpture. When he returned to acting in the early 1990s, he began a busy second chapter across film, television and animation. His film and television-movie work included parts in X-Men, Serendipity, Murder at 1600, Rocky Marciano, 10,000 Black Men Named George, A Holiday Romance and The Salem Witch Trials. He also played Max Coleman in the 2002 television movie Martin and Lewis. Rather than being tied to one kind of project, Tager became a familiar supporting player across dramas, comedies, mysteries and genre television. That range is especially clear in his television credits. He was a member of the repertory cast of A&E’s A Nero Wolfe Mystery from 2001 to 2002 and appeared in series including Monk, Due South, Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Earth: Final Conflict, Wonderfalls, Relic Hunter and Puppets Who Kill. His voice work extended the same versatility into animated productions such as Donkey Kong Country, Blazing Dragons, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, Silver Surfer, George Shrinks, Jane and the Dragon and The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police. Tager was also a poet and a long-time resident of Toronto. His visual art remained a substantial part of his life: he exhibited his work widely, received awards for sculpture and had sculptures installed at schools, a college and public or community locations in Vermont, Pennsylvania and Indianapolis. That parallel creative life gives his acting career its distinctive shape—not a departure from art, but one part of a much broader body of work. Tager died in 2019.