Joseph Bernard

Joseph Bernard (born Fieldman; December 12, 1923 – April 3, 2006) was an American actor and acting teacher who appeared in 25 Broadway plays and several movies and TV appearances in the 1950s through 1970s.

Bernard was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants Bernard Fieldman, a suitcase maker, and Lenya Kaplan, from Pinsk.

He studied at New York's New School for Social Research with acting teacher Stella Adler. One of his New School classmates was Marlon Brando.

Bernard was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in the D-Day invasion of France. After the war, he appeared in the play Winter Soldiers and then Skipper Next to God, directed by Lee Strasberg and starring John Garfield, with whom he became friends. Garfield was Bernard's best man at his marriage to his wife, Bina, whom he wed in 1952. Bina died in 2001.

Bernard appeared in Murder, Inc., the Stanley Kramer film Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), in which he played an assistant to the American prosecutor, played by Richard Widmark, and a number of other films that included Ice Station Zebra. His television roles included appearances on Star Trek, The Twilight Zone (in the 1961 episode The Shelter), and Mission: Impossible.

In 1968, he became an executive director and teacher at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in Hollywood. He moved to Las Vegas in 1979 and established the Joseph Bernard Acting Studio.

In addition to directing episodes of The Flying Nun TV series, Joseph wrote both stage plays and screenplays. His original theater production Take Off Your Clothes, I'll Make You A Star, based on his experiences as an acting teacher, had runs in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Bernard and his son, writer/producer Sam Bernard, collaborated on the screenplay for the feature film Payback (1995) for Trimark Pictures.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1960 Murder, Inc. Mendy Weiss1961 Judgment at Nuremberg Maj. Abe Radnitz 1968 Don't Just Stand There Police Inspector Ice Station Zebra Dr. Jack Benning 1970 R. P. M. 4th Professor at dining table Uncredited 1971 The Steagle Max Levine Brute Corps Sheriff Alvarez 1972 Stand Up and Be Counted Executive Uncredited 1973 The Baby Mr. Foley The Laughing Policeman Avakian's Brother 1974 Hangup Proprietor 1983 The Man Who Loved Women Dr. Simon Abrams 1985 Fever Pitch Bernstein 1986 Heat Pit Boss 1992 Mikey Dr. Schaefer 1993 Warlock: The Armageddon Sutherland