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Stephen Harold Tobolowsky (born May 30, 1951) is a Tony Award-nominated American television, stage and film actor best known for playing characters who are amiable, brainy, and/or clueless.
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This article has been tagged since June 2007.
Tobolowsky grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. Known for his acting and debating skills, he was voted Most Likely to Succeed upon graduation from Justin F. Kimball High School in 1969. While there, he was also lead singer in the first band formed by guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan and his brother Jimmy Vaughn.
Before graduating from the University of Illinois, he attended Southern Methodist University for two years, majoring in theater along with his friend and fellow Dallasite Patricia Richardson. He was once briefly held hostage at gunpoint in a supermarket across the street from the SMU campus.
He is married to actress Ann Hearn and is the father of two sons.
After starting on the New York theater scene, he moved to Hollywood to enter the film business. He has appeared in over 100 films and at least as many television projects. Throughout his career he has maintained a connection to the theater by directing and acting in plays in New York and Los Angeles. He directed one movie, Two Idiots in Hollywood, which was based on his play of the same name. He also co-wrote the film True Stories with David Byrne. In 2005 he released a documentary film, Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party, featuring a performance in which he tells stories from his life to a group of friends.
Perhaps through sheer force of repetition, he is known from his role in 1993's Groundhog Day, in which he played Bill Murray's annoying high school classmate and insurance salesman, Ned Ryerson, who Murray's character keeps running into when he keeps repeating February 2. He would later reunite with Murray 11 years later and appeared in the movie version of the comic strip Garfield where he played the sinister dog trainer Happy Chapman (Murray himself provided the voice of the orange feline). He appeared as a gentle sound man with a dark secret in the 1994 film Radioland Murders. He also had a memorable guest spot on Seinfeld as Tor Ackman, Kramer's holistic healer, in the second season episode, "The Heart Attack.". He was also known for playing Sammy Jankis in 2001's Memento starring Guy Pearce. He was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play for the 2002 revival of Morning's at Seven.
