Theatre Balsam made his professional debut in August 1941 in a production of ''
The Play's the Thing'' in
Locust Valley. After World War II, he resumed his acting career in New York. In 1947–1949, Balsam was a resident member of the summer stock company Town Hall Players in
West Newbury, Massachusetts, a community-sponsored summer theatre. In early 1948, he was selected by
Elia Kazan to be a member in the recently formed
Actors Studio. He appeared consistently in Broadway and off-Broadway plays, something he would continue to do well into his screen acting career. Columnist
Earl Wilson dubbed him "The Bronx Barrymore". In 1968, he won a
Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in the 1967
Broadway production of ''
You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running''.
Television Balsam performed in several episodes of the studio's dramatic television
anthology series, broadcast between September 1948 and 1950. He appeared in many other television drama series, including
Decoy with
Beverly Garland; the
Route 66 episode, "Somehow It Gets To Be Tomorrow";
The Twilight Zone as a psychologist in the 1958 pilot episode "
The Time Element", and appearing in the episodes "
The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" and "
The New Exhibit";
Five Fingers;
Target: The Corruptors!;
The Eleventh Hour;
Breaking Point;
Alfred Hitchcock Presents;
The Fugitive; and
Mr. Broadway; as a retired U.N.C.L.E. agent in
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode, "The Odd Man Affair"; and in the two-part
Murder, She Wrote episode, "Death Stalks the Big Top". He played Dr. Rudy Wells when the
Martin Caidin novel
Cyborg was adapted as a TV movie pilot for
The Six Million Dollar Man (1973), though he did not reprise the role for the subsequent series. In 1975, he appeared as James Arthur Cummins in the
Joe Don Baker police drama
Mitchell, a film that was eventually featured in an episode of the film parody series
Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1993. He appeared as a spokesman/hostage in the TV movie
Raid on Entebbe (1976) and as a detective in the TV movie
Contract on Cherry Street (1977), starring
Frank Sinatra. He also appeared on an episode of
Quincy, M.E.. Balsam starred as Murray Klein on the
All in the Family spin-off ''
Archie Bunker's Place'' for two seasons (1979–81) and returned for a guest appearance in the show's fourth and final season.
Film Balsam made his film debut with an uncredited role in
On the Waterfront (1954), directed by his Actors Studio colleague Elia Kazan. Balsam played an official of the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey investigating mob involvement in the city's waterfront unions. His breakthrough role came a few years later, when he played Juror #1 in
12 Angry Men (1957). He would collaborate with the film's director,
Sidney Lumet, twice more with
The Anderson Tapes (1971) and
Murder on the Orient Express (1974). In 1960, he appeared in one of his best-remembered roles as private investigator Arbogast in
Alfred Hitchcock's
Psycho, culminating in a scene in which
Mrs. Bates chases him down a flight of stairs to stab him to death. Along with
Gregory Peck and
Robert Mitchum, Balsam appeared in both the original
Cape Fear (1962), and the 1991
Martin Scorsese remake. He won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Arnold Burns in
A Thousand Clowns (1965). Balsam also performed the original voice of the
HAL 9000 computer in
2001: A Space Odyssey. He told a journalist in August 1966, "I'm not actually seen in the picture at any time, but I sure create a lot of excitement projecting my voice through that machine. And I'm getting an Academy Award winner price for doing it, too." After his lines were recorded, director
Stanley Kubrick decided "Marty just sounded a little bit too colloquially American," and hired
Douglas Rain to perform the role for the released film. Balsam also appeared in such notable films as
Time Limit with
Richard Widmark, ''
Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, The Carpetbaggers with George Peppard and Alan Ladd, Seven Days in May with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, The Bedford Incident with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, The Man with James Earl Jones, Hombre with Paul Newman and Fredric March, Catch-22 with Alan Arkin and Jon Voight, Tora! Tora! Tora! (as Admiral Husband E. Kimmel), Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, All the President's Men with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, The Delta Force with Lee Marvin, and The Goodbye People. One of his final acting appearances was in the 1994 horror parody The Silence of the Hams, which paid homage to his iconic role in Psycho''. Beyond Hollywood, Balsam was also a popular character actor in Italian films, beginning in 1960 when he starred in the
Luigi Comencini film
Everybody Go Home. He would star in several
poliziottesco films throughout the 1970s, directed by the likes of
Fernando Di Leo and
Enzo G. Castellari. Balsam's roles in these films would be re-dubbed into Italian, but he would loop his own lines in the English-language export versions. Balsam maintained close ties to Italy even after the end of the
poliziottesco trend, traveling there for both professional and personal reasons, and starring in the Italian-produced television series
Ocean and
La piovra. == Personal life ==