NEW YORK — George Coe, a film, stage and television actor who earned an Oscar nomination for his single picture as a director — the 1968 short feature “De Duva (The Dove),” a mock-Swedish-inflected sendup of Ingmar Bergman that has endured as a cult favorite — died July 18 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 86.
His daughter Amy Bickers confirmed his death.
Mr. Coe, whose half-century-long career encompassed roles on Broadway; in movies like “The Stepford Wives,” “French Postcards,” and “Kramer vs. Kramer”; and— in a seminal if seldom-remembered achievement — in the original cast of “Saturday Night Live,” also served more than a decade on the Screen Actors Guild board.
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In “De Duva,” of which Mr. Coe was a director (with Anthony Lover), producer (with Lover and Sidney Davis), and star, he out-Bergmaned Bergman. About 14 minutes long and shot in brooding black and white in the woods of upstate New York, the film features Coe, in heavy age makeup, as a professor looking back on his love (read: lust) for his comely sister, Inga.
“De Duva” was nominated for an Academy Award for best live-action short subject and proved wildly popular on college campuses.
The film also stars Madeline Kahn in her screen debut.
George Julian Cohen was born in Queens and reared on Long Island. He adopted the surname Coe early in his career.
After attending Hofstra University, he spent four years as a Navy submariner during the Korean War. Aboard the sub, he did a comedy radio broadcast and then studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
In 1975, Mr. Coe, playing various roles, was seen in the first episode of Season 1 of “Saturday Night Live.” In that episode, and in nearly a dozen subsequent appearances he served as a conspicuously grown-up counterweight to the youthful anarchy wrought by Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, and the other players.
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He had recurring or guest roles on scores of other TV shows, among them “Hill Street Blues,” “Max Headroom,” “Thirtysomething,” “Murphy Brown,” “L.A. Law,” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
On film, he played the head of the advertising agency for which Dustin Hoffman works in “Kramer vs. Kramer.”