Albert Paulsen

Albert Paulsen
Performer1980
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Portrays:	General Yodel
Date of Birth:	December 13, 1925
Date of Death:	April 25, 2004
Age at Death:	78
Nationality:
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Albert Paulsen (born Alberto Paulson Andrade; December 13, 1925 – April 25, 2004) was an Ecuadorian-American actor who portrayed General Yodel in the Galactica 1980 episodes "Galactica Discovers Earth, Part II" and "Galactica Discovers Earth, Part III."

Early Life

Paulsen was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on December 13, 1925, to Alfredo Paulson Moulis and Zoila María Andrade Flor, who died shortly after his birth. He was one of five siblings in the Paulson Andrade household. From an early age, Paulsen demonstrated a passion for theater, often letting his hair grow long and wrapping himself in sheets to perform Hamlet monologues in front of a mirror.

He studied for three years at the German School in Quito and in 1933 returned to Guayaquil, where he attended the Cristóbal Colón and San José schools. He completed three years of secondary education at Vicente Rocafuerte but did not continue following his father's death, which left him feeling alone in the world.

In 1940, due to his family's difficult economic situation, Paulsen began working for the Grace Line shipping company, followed by two years as a flight dispatcher for Panagra airlines, a position he lost due to conflicts with superiors. In November 1943, as a complete orphan at age eighteen, he emigrated to the United States.

Immigration and Military Service

Upon arriving in the United States as an undocumented immigrant, Paulsen initially worked at a shipyard in Los Angeles. After traveling to New York, he was discovered by customs officials and, as an illegal immigrant during World War II, was recruited into military service. He became a United States citizen in Tacoma, Washington, in 1945, at which time he changed his name slightly from Alberto Paulson to Albert Paulsen.

Between 1945 and 1946, Paulsen served eighteen months at the military base in Frankfurt, Germany. Upon receiving an honorable discharge, the Army provided him with educational benefits through the famous 52-20 bonus program, which offered twenty dollars per week for fifty-two weeks to help veterans decide their futures.

Career

Training

Using his G.I. Bill benefits, Paulsen enrolled in New York's oldest and most prestigious theater school, the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where Martha Graham had taught dance and where he studied under Sanford Meisner, learning the Meisner technique until his graduation in 1951. He then joined Robert Lewis's Professional Group for three years and auditioned for the Actors Studio, where he was selected from among one thousand applicants. He eventually became a life member of The Actors Studio, studying with Lee Strasberg.

In 1947, Paulsen witnessed Marlon Brando's performance in A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan on Broadway, an experience that profoundly impacted him and inspired him to reach that level of artistic excellence.

Stage Career

Paulsen's first theatrical production was "The Rope" with James Broderick, which led to his admission into the National Actors Union. He subsequently performed in an adaptation of Balzac's "Father Goriot," the leading role in Molière's "Don Juan," Adamov's "Ping Pong," and made his off-Broadway debut in "Night Circus" alongside Ben Gazzara.

Paulsen received his first well-paid theatrical work in George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" alongside Carroll Baker in a three-month tour of the western United States that included Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia. In 1960, he was contracted for seven months to work in San Francisco theaters, though he was eventually dismissed from "The Miracle Worker" due to problems with alcohol.

Paulsen performed on Broadway with Geraldine Page in Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters in 1964 under the direction of Lee Strasberg, in a superproduction featuring Kim Stanley, George C. Scott, Shirley Knight, Kevin McCarthy, and Robert Loggia. In 1965, he traveled with the production to London, where he received significant publicity. He also appeared in a motion picture version of the play.

An avid reader who revered novelist Vladimir Nabokov, Paulsen created a one-man show titled "Nabokov," which premiered at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles in 1982 before touring nationally. He wrote this monologue after losing all his capital, including his house, during an eight-month Hollywood industry strike in 1981. A Los Angeles Times reviewer described the performance as having a gentle, infectious quality that brought one of the century's great writers to life.

Film Career

Director John Frankenheimer provided Paulsen a crucial opportunity during his difficult period, casting him in All Fall Down (1962) with Warren Beatty, Karl Malden, and Angela Lansbury. That same year, Frankenheimer cast him in The Manchurian Candidate as the Soviet agent Zilkov, alongside Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, a film that achieved tremendous success.

Other film credits included Che! (1969), The Laughing Policeman (1973) with Walter Matthau, Young Frankenstein (1974), Gunn (1967), The Next Man (1976) with Sean Connery, and Eyewitness (1981) with William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver.

Television Career

Albert Paulsen (left) appears with Lorne Greene (right) in the 1973 Griff television series episode "Marked for Murder."

With his pronounced accent and distinctive presence, Paulsen became one of television's most recognizable character actors during the 1960s and 1970s, specializing in portrayals of Eastern European characters, Nazi officers, Communist agents, and sophisticated villains. His foreign accent proved invaluable for these roles, and he specialized in playing villainous characters.

He earned an Emmy Award in 1964 for Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor for his portrayal of Lieutenant Volkovoi, a guard at a Soviet gulag, in the 1963 production of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" on Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, adapted from the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn novel and starring Jason Robards. According to his nephew's account, Paulsen did not attend the Emmy ceremony that night because he had been drinking excessively.

When the Emmy was announced, Paulsen was working on an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Series star Robert Vaughn, realizing that Paulsen had not been formally presented with his Emmy, obtained the statuette and handed it to Paulsen in a special ceremony on the show's set.

Paulsen appeared in numerous popular television series including Combat! (four episodes, 1962-1966), Mission: Impossible (five episodes, 1966-1970), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (three episodes), Hawaii Five-O (four episodes, 1969-1980), 77 Sunset Strip, The Untouchables, The F.B.I., I Spy, The Rockford Files, Columbo, Kojak, The Rat Patrol, 12 O'Clock High, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Knight Rider, Airwolf, and Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

He appeared in the 1974 television film The Missiles of October, portraying Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin in the acclaimed ABC dramatization of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also appeared in lighter roles, including an episode of The Odd Couple as Boris Kalnikov, a European opera star.

His only prime-time series regular role was in the short-lived 1975 NBC medical drama Doctors' Hospital, where he played Dr. Janos Varga, the director of a Los Angeles hospital alongside series star George Peppard. He also had regular roles in two daytime serials: the 1970 ABC soap opera A World Apart and ABC's General Hospital in 1988, which marked some of his last television work.

Personal Life

In 1966, Paulsen was living in a common-law marriage in New York with a woman who had been previously married and had children from her prior marriage, whom Paulsen raised as his own. The relationship ended eleven years later.

Paulsen struggled with alcoholism throughout his career. In 1967, his drinking problem intensified, and in 1968, while working on a television serial in Hollywood, he suffered a perforated ulcer and was rushed to the hospital in grave condition. After this incident, he stopped drinking bourbon entirely, understanding he needed to change for the better.

In November 1995, after fifty-three years of absence, Paulsen returned to Ecuador to visit his family, with whom he had always maintained contact through letters and telephone calls. His visit prompted a family celebration with the entire Paulson family, where he met many relatives. He returned to Los Angeles after six days, as he no longer had ties to Ecuador, coming essentially to retrace his steps as he was already experiencing the first effects of the illness that would ultimately claim his life.

Paulsen's final years were difficult as he lived alone and suffered from Alzheimer's disease. During his time in a nursing home, he formed a romantic connection with actress Peggy Sell (also known as Annalisa "Peggy" Sell Cranston), the mother of actor Bryan Cranston, who was also suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

He died on Sunday, April 25, 2004, in Los Angeles at the age of 78 from natural causes. He was survived by his brother Juan.

Legacy

In 2017, the Alberto Paulsen Acting Studio was inaugurated in the Las Peñas neighborhood of Guayaquil as a way of commemorating his life and work, training young people in theater under the auspices of the Municipality and the endorsement of the Ministry of Culture, directed by his nephew Carlos Icaza Paulson.

References