Paul Shenar Movies and Career Information

Paul Shenar (February 12, 1936 - October 11, 1989) was an American actor. Shenar's birth name was Albert Paul Shenar. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from Turkish and Jewish heritage, he was one of four children. Paul became involved in theater at an early age, partaking in the local Milwaukee playhouse productions. After graduating from high school, Shenar enlisted in the United States Air Force. Following his military career he began acting again. Shenar gained attention playing larger-than-life entertainment legends on 1970s television. He portrayed Orson Welles in the TV movie The Night That Panicked America (1975) (TV) and Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. in Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women (1978) (TV). He is probably best known for playing the murderous Bolivian drug lord Alejandro Sosa in Brian De Palma's 1983 version of Scarface. A founding member, actor, director and teacher of the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco, he played more than forty roles there, including "Hamlet", "Oedipus Rex" and "Tiny Alice". Known for his unsympathetic portrayals, he voiced the evil rat Jenner in the animated feature The Secret of NIMH (1982). After seeing what kind of drawing Jenner was