Martin Landau, winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1994 for his performance as Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's Ed Wood," has also been nominated for an Academy Award twice before, in 1988 for his performance as Abe Karatz in Francis Coppola's "Tucker," and again in 1989 for his role as Judah Rosenthal in Woody Allen's "Crimes And Misdemeanors." Third time's the charm!

Landau was born in Brooklyn, New York, and studied fine art at Pratt Institute, still regarded as one of America's finest art schools. At seventeen he worked as an artist at the New York Daily News, the newspaper with the country's largest circulation, where he illustrated Billy Rose's column, "Pitching Horseshoes," and drew various other comic strips.

In his early twenties, he sought new challenges and resigned from the newspaper In order to study for the theater. Auditioning with two thousand other applicants, he was accepted into Lee Strasberg's world-renown Actors Studio. The only other young actor accepted that year was Steve McQueen.

Gaining experience under the tutelage of the theater's great directors at Actors Studio (Stasberg, EllA Kazan Harold Clurman, Bobby Lewis and Curt Conway), Landau soon moved into professional theater. He played Juvan in Franz Werfel's "Goat Song," a role that Alfred Lunt had originated in 1926. Other successes followed, "Stalag 17," "First Love," "The Penguin," and "Middle of the Night," to name a few.

During this Broadway period, the new medium of "live" television was being born, and Landau entered television starring in countless network programs. He played "John the Baptist" opposite Eartha Kitt and Patricia Neal on "Omnibus Presents Oscar Wilde's 'Salome." His other appearances included "Studio One," "The Philco Playhouse," "Goodyear Playhouse," "Kraft Theater," "Armstrong Circle Theater," "Playhouse 90," plus dozens more during TV's Golden Age.

After opening on Broadway in Paddy Chayafsky's hit play, "Middle of the Night," directed by Josh Logan, and starring Edward G. Robinson for over a year, the national tour of that play brought Landau to the West Coast, and to the attention of such film directors and producers as Alfred Hitchcock, Lewis Milestone, and George Stevens.

When the show closed, Landau went to work in films under the talented eyes of Hitchcock (North by Northwest), Stevens (The Greatest Story Ever Told), Milestone (Pork Chop Hill), John Sturges (The Hallelujah Trail), Henry Hathaway (Nevada Smith), and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Cleopatra). In this latter film his co-stars were Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison.

Landau has worked in over one hundred feature films with practically every important actor and director in Hollywood. Among these are Cary Grant, Glenn Ford, Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, Jeff Bridges; Robert DeNiro, Barbara Stanwyck, Gregory Peck, Steven Spielberg, Francis Coppola, and Woody Allen.

In addition to dozens of made-for-TV and Cable Movies, and hundreds of Guest-Starring appearances on episodic shows, television viewers around the world are familiar with the two hit series in which Landau has starred, "Mission: Impossible," and "Space: 1999". Both of these shows have played, and are still being seen in scores of countries.

Landau has been a director and a teacher for well over a quarter of a century, working with such actors as James Dean. Warren Cares, Harry Dean Stanton, Angelica Huston, and Jack Nicholson. Nicholson worked under Landau's aegis for three consecutive years early in his career.

In addition to his Oscar and Academy Award Nominations, Landau has many other awards and citations. For his work in "Ed Wood"; in addition to the Oscar, the recognition he received is unprecedented for his work in this 1994 Tim Burton/Disney film about the worst director in Hollywood's history. They include:

• Hollywood Foreign Press' Golden Globe Award (his third).
• Screen Actor's Guild's first annual award, The Actor
• American Comedy Award
• New York Film Critic's Award
• Los Angeles Film Critic's Award
• Chicago Film Critic's Award
• National Society of Film Critic's Award
• Boston Film Critic's Award
• Texas Film Critic's Award

In addition to his three Golden Globe Awards, Landau has three CableACE nominations, one CableACE Award for his work in TV-Cable movies, six Emmy nominations, the Belgian Viewers Best Actor Award, the Brazilian Saci Award, and is biographied in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

Recently, Landau received five additional prestigious awards:

• German Golden Camera Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Berlin Film Festival
• REMI Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Houston Film Festival
• Wedgewood Award for Lifetime Achievement from the renowned Goodman Theater of Chicago
• Lifetime Achievement Award from the Charleston Film Festival
• Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Diego Film Festival and The Method-Fest.

Landau is currently Executive-Director of the Actors Studio on the West Coast, a post he shares with film directors, Mark Rydell and Sydney Pollack.

Continuing to work steadily, Landau has recently completed roles in five feature films which are all in various stages of post production. Among them is an older-couple love story, "Lovely Still," in which he co stars with Ellen Burstyn. "David and Fatima" is a modernization of Romeo and Juliet, in which an Arab girl falls in love with an Israeli boy. Landau plays an idiosyncratic rabbi in this film. "City of Ember" is a film he recently shot in Belfast in which Landau's co stars are Bill Murray and Tim Robbins. "Harrison Montgomery" is a forthcoming feature, shot in San Francisco, in which Landau plays the title role. These are just some of his recent work, all of which will be released and seen in theaters in 2008 and early 2009.

Martin Landau has functioned in theater, films and television for well over five decades, working continually as an actor, director, writer, producer and teacher.

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