Abraham Sofaer gives judges, religious figures and dignitaries a resonant voice and a formidable stare. We value his gravity, with one reservation: too many of these parts give him something to explain and too little else to do.
Fi1m perspective
In Quo Vadis (1951), Abraham Sofaer’s Paul of Tarsus explains doctrine to a soldier who is only pretending to listen. He has the resonant voice for the task, but Mervyn LeRoy’s film gives him little help in making it dramatic. We grew impatient with these exchanges because faith was being explained while the story stood still. The writing makes a lesson of what ought to be a conversation, and Sofaer’s authority cannot supply the interest that the scene needs.
His Shakespearean stage background is audible in the clear, weighty delivery. A screen career beginning in the early 1930s repeatedly found uses for his imposing presence and wide-eyed stare. Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946) casts him as both Judge and Surgeon, two jobs for which that bearing is useful. It is a concise indication of what filmmakers saw in him: someone an audience could accept as qualified to pronounce on other people.
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) gives him another Judge, within Albert Lewin’s romantic fantasy. We recommend it more readily than Quo Vadis, though it would be misleading to make Sofaer the reason. Ava Gardner and James Mason provide the chemistry, and the colour helps carry the solemn excesses and the stretches when the story waits for the scenery. The scenic pauses still test our patience, but the central performances give us considerably more reason to stay.
The later career makes the limits of that casting clearer. Incacha in The Naked Jungle (1954) and Appuhamy in Elephant Walk (1954) are examples of the period’s habit of assigning him ‘exotic’ supporting figures. By the 1960s, television guest work predominated, including appearances in Perry Mason and The Twilight Zone, while I Dream of Jeannie gave him the recurring role of Haji. For a first encounter, choose Pandora and the Flying Dutchman for the romance, then A Matter of Life and Death for the chance to see him in two parts.
Biography
Abraham Sofaer (also credited as Abraham Isaac Sofaer) was a British actor of Iraqi-Jewish descent. Born in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), he began his career on the London stage in 1921 and later appeared on Broadway, including as Benjamin Disraeli in Victoria Regina (1935). He made his film debut in the early 1930s and became a familiar supporting player in British and American productions.
Notable film roles include the dual part of the Judge and Surgeon in A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and Paul of Tarsus in Quo Vadis (1951). From the 1950s he worked extensively in Hollywood, appearing in films such as Chisum (1970) and guest roles on numerous television series, including a recurring part as Haji on I Dream of Jeannie (1965–1970) and voice work on Star Trek (1966). He retired in the mid-1970s and died in Woodland Hills, California, in 1988.
