David Lawrence Groh (May 21, 1939 - February 12, 2008) was an American actor best known for his portrayal of Joe Gerard in the 1970s Mary Tyler Moore spinoff series Rhoda, opposite Valerie Harper.
Groh was born in Brooklyn, the son of Mildred and Benjamin Groh. He had a sister, Marilyn. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School, then enrolled at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English literature.
He performed with the American Shakespeare Theatre, then went to Great Britain to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright scholarship, and served in the U.S. Army from 1963-1964. On his return to New York City, he studied at the Actors Studio. He made his television debut in the Gothic daytime soap opera Dark Shadows on ABC in 1966, but fame eluded him until Rhoda.
Playing Joe Gerard, a New York City construction worker who met Rhoda Morgenstern, best friend of Mary Richards on CBS' The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Groh co-starred in the spin-off series Rhoda. The show premiered September 9, 1974. Joe and Rhoda married in the seventh episode. The network gave the marriage much advance publicity, and the episode proved a ratings blockbuster, having drawn some fifty million viewers to become one of television's most-watched single programs.
In season three, the couple separated, and was later divorced. According to Valerie Harper, Groh was written out of the show when the producers decided that Rhoda worked better with its star as a single woman. "We all felt very bad about David not continuing," she said. The two remained lifelong friends. Rhoda was canceled in the fall of 1978.
Thereafter, Groh starred in his own series, the short-lived Another Day, and went on to make his Broadway theater debut in Neil Simon's Chapter Two.
From 1983-1985, Groh played D. L. Brock in the ABC soap opera General Hospital, leaving that daytime serial to appear in Off-Broadway play Be Happy for Me (1986). The New York Times drama critic Frank Rich found Groh "completely convincing as the brash gold-chain-and-bikini-clad Lothario". Other New York City theater credits include Road Show (1987), and The Twilight of the Golds (1993).
On television, Groh appeared in guest roles on such series as Melrose Place, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Law & Order, Baywatch, Murder, She Wrote, The X-Files, and L.A. Law. His movies included Victory at Entebbe (1976), Get Shorty (1995), and many independent films.
Groh was a serious collector of antique furniture and folk art, much of which he kept in a second home in southern Connecticut. His main residence was in Santa Monica, California, where he lived with his wife Kristin Andersen and his son Spencer, from a previous marriage.
In the mid-2000s, Groh appeared in a commercial for Sour Skittles in which he is being milked When told by the dairy manager that his intake of Sour Skittles may be causing his milk to sour he replies, "That's a risk I'm willing to take".
Groh died of kidney cancer in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 68.
