Fahrid Murray Abraham (born October 24, 1939) is an Academy Award-winning American actor. He became known during the 1980s, after winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in Amadeus, and has since appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films, television, and mainly on stage.
Abraham was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Josephine, a housewife, and Fahrid Abraham, an auto mechanic. His father was an Assyrian Christian who immigrated from Syria during the 1920s famine; his paternal grandfather was a chanter in the Syriac Orthodox Church. Abraham's mother, one of fourteen children, was an Italian American, the daughter of an immigrant who worked in the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania. Abraham was raised in El Paso, Texas, near the Mexican border, where he was a gang member during his teenage years. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, then studied acting under Uta Hagen in New York City. He began his acting career on the stage, debuting in a Los Angeles production of Ray Bradbury's The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.
Abraham won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (1984). After Amadeus he has mainly focused on classical theatre, and has starred in many Shakespearean productions such as Othello and Richard III, as well as many other plays by the likes of Samuel Beckett and Gilbert and Sullivan.
Abraham has focused on stage work throughout his career, giving notable performances as Pozzo in Mike Nichols' production of Waiting for Godot, Malvolio in Twelfth Night for the New York Shakespeare Festival, and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice for a New York based theatre company called Theatre For A New Audience (TFANA) which has been performed in March 2007 at The Swan Theatre, part of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Abraham has been married to Kate Hannan since 1962; they have two children. He taught Theater at Brooklyn College.
