Louis Sorin was born in New York City, and appeared on
Broadway in more than 20 productions between 1923 and 1952. Sorin worked in New York almost exclusively, appearing in a handful of feature films produced on the east coast. He specialized in dialect roles, often affecting a Jewish accent. In
Paramount Pictures' musical revue
Glorifying the American Girl (1929), Sorin and
Eddie Cantor appeared as two opportunistic tailors in a comedy sketch. While at Paramount, Sorin re-created his Broadway role in the film adaptation of
Animal Crackers. His only other feature-film credit of the 1930s was
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933), an attempt by
Universal Pictures to film a low-budget ($100,000) musical in New York. Showman
Sid Grauman brought the
George S. Kaufman-
Moss Hart play
Once in a Lifetime, a satire of moviemaking, to Los Angeles in January 1931. Sorin worked alongside future screen comedienne
Aline MacMahon and character actor
Russell Hopton. In 1937 Louis Sorin worked in two-reel comedies for New York-based
Educational Pictures, again employing various dialects opposite comedy stars
Bert Lahr and
Willie Howard. Sorin might have continued with Educational, but the studio discontinued production in 1938. The 1940s established Louis Sorin as a voice actor. From 1942 to 1945, Sorin portrayed Pancho on the radio series
The Cisco Kid. He also participated in the New York-produced film
Seeds of Freedom (1943), a wartime modernization of the 1925 silent film
The Battleship Potemkin combined with new newsreel footage, in which Sorin joined radio actors Junius Matthews, Aline MacMahon, and others in adding spoken dialogue to the silent action. Sorin came into his own in 1950, when the new field of commercial network television was based in New York, and many programs were broadcast live. Sorin played character parts in many early television productions, notably a 1950 adaptation of
Raymond Chandler's
The Big Sleep with
Zachary Scott, a 1954
United States Steel Hour dramatization of
Elmer Rice's
The Grand Tour, and a 1955
Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of another Rice play,
Dream Girl, starring
Vivian Blaine and
Hal March. Sorin also played a few leads on early TV, including two playlets of 1951. In
A Little Night Music, Sorin played an immigrant barber whose devotion to music brings his family to the brink of tragedy. He starred in "The Golden Crown", an installment of
Anna May Wong's dramatic series for the
Dumont Network,
The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong. He was also featured as Cousin Simon on NBC's popular comedy series
The Goldbergs. In 1950 he appeared with fellow New York stage veterans
Sam Levene and
Arlene Francis in an industrial film,
With These Hands, produced at the
Fox Movietone studio in New York. The film, sponsored by the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union, re-enacted the notorious
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. Sorin kept working until his death on December 14, 1961. His final performance, in an episode of the
Naked City TV series, aired the night before he died. == Partial filmography ==