Leonard Frey

It seems like almost every year an actor the movie going public has rarely heard of ends up with an Oscar nomination, only to go back into obscurity after the big event. In 1972 the film was Fiddler on the Roof, and the actor's name was Leonard Frey. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, losing out to Ben Johnson's performance in The Last Picture Show.

While he may have been mostly unknown to the public, Leonard Frey was a prolific working actor long before, and after, his 15 minutes of movie fame. Like so many of the good actors, his training was the New York stage where his work in Little Mary Sunshine and The Boys in the Band opened the doors to his career in film and television.

With the exception of Fiddler on the Roof, and the movie version of The Boys in the Band, Leonard Frey never played a character that launched him into public fame. That's partly because he was one of those actors that could disappear into his role. And if one wasn't paying close attention to the end credits, the audience may have never realized they'd seen this actor before playing a completely different character.

In 1988 Leonard Frey passed away from complications of AIDS at the young age of 49. His later years he was mostly seen on television game shows such as Super Password and Hollywood Squares. And while mainstream audiences were able to discover him through those game shows, his true talent as an actor remained unknown to so many, leaving him to join the ranks of the Not Very Famous...but should be.