Cliff Osmond, 75; Character Actor in Many Movies, TV

Clifford Osman Ebrahim (also known as Cliff Osmond), a 45-year Pacific Palisades resident, died on December 22 from pancreatic cancer.   Osmond was a prolific character actor on film and television, most notably in a run of Billy Wilder comedies.   Wilder first cast Osmond, who stood well over 6 feet tall, as a gendarme in ‘Irma la Douce’ (1963). In the 1964 sex farce ‘Kiss Me, Stupid,’ Osmond played aspiring songwriter Barney to Dean Martin’s Dino.   Osmond wrote on his Web site that during the making of ‘Kiss Me, Stupid,’ while he struggled to carry a tune, Mr. Wilder remarked, ‘Cliff has the musical ear of van Gogh.’   Osmond played Purkey, an investigator of insurance fraud, in the 1966 dark comedy ‘The Fortune Cookie,’ the first film starring both Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau; and another police officer in Wilder’s version of ‘The Front Page’ (1974), which also starred Lemmon and Matthau.   Osmond got his start in television in the early 1960s with guest starring roles on a range of programs such as ‘The Rifleman,’ ‘Twilight Zone,’ ‘The Untouchables,’ ‘Wagon Train,’ ‘The Flying Nun,’ ‘Gunsmoke,’ ‘All in the Family,’ ‘Police Story,’ ‘The Bob Newhart Show,’ ‘Starsky and Hutch’ and ‘Murder She Wrote.’   From the 1960s to the ’90s, Osmond appeared on television more than 100 times. He was also a well-regarded acting teacher and once estimated that he had taught more than 10,000 actors.   Ebrahim was born on February 26, 1937, in Jersey City (adapting his middle name as his professional name). He grew up in Union City, New Jersey, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1959. He received a master’s degree in business from UCLA.   He is survived by his wife, Gretchen Ebrahim; his son, Eric Ebrahim of Los Angeles; daughter Mishi Ebrahim (husband Jorge Gonzalez) of Washington, D.C.; and a granddaughter, Sofia Gonzalez.   Memorial donations can be made in memory of Cliff Osmond to: Pancreatic Cancer Action Network,1500 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 200, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266.   The family held a burial at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica on January 3 and is planning a public memorial the last week of January. The specific details will be announced at Cliffosmond.com and on Osmond’s Facebook page. ‘