Steven Hill (born February 22, 1922 in Seattle, Washington as Solomon Krakovsky) is an American film and television actor who was a founding member of the Actor’s Studio . He is best known as District Attorney Adam Schiff in the NBC TV drama series Law & Order, a part that he played for ten seasons (1990-2000).
Also he was the original leader of the Impossible Missions Force, Dan Briggs, in the TV version of Mission: Impossible, but he left the series after the first season. As one of the few Orthodox Jewish actors working in Hollywood, he was not willing to abide by the show’s production schedule because it required him to work during the Sabbath. He was replaced the next season by Peter Graves.
After a four-year hitch with the Naval Reserve, actor Steven Hill made his first New York stage appearance in Ben Hecht's A Flag is Born (1946), which also featured a young Marlon Brando. Hill made his film debut in 1950, then returned to the Navy for two more years before settling down to acting on a permanent basis. He was particularly busy in the so-called Golden Age of live TV drama, appearing in such prestigious video offerings as "The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti" (1959). In 1966, he was cast as Daniel Briggs--as in "Good morning, Mr. Briggs"--on the hit TV adventure series Mission: Impossible. He left this lucrative assignment in 1967, reportedly because his Orthodox Jewish faith prevented him from filming on weekends; his replacement was Peter Graves as "Mr. Phelps" (in 1989, Hill guest-starred on the short-lived Mission: Impossible revival). Hill remained very much in demand throughout the 1980s and 1990s playing parental and authority-figure roles in such films as Yentl (1983) Heartburn (1986) and Billy Bathgate (1991).
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