George Segal, the banjo player-turned-actor who was nominated for an Oscar for 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and starred in the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs, died on Tuesday in Santa Rosa, California, his wife said.
“The family is devastated to announce that this morning George Segal passed away due to complications from bypass surgery,” Sonia Segal said in a statement.
The director, Mike Nichols, needed someone who would get the approval of the star Elizabeth Taylor, and turned to Segal when Robert Redford turned him down.
And that guy sort of turned into Chevy Chase, and after that there was really no place to go.”