[citation needed] A protégé of Lee Strasberg, David made his Broadway debut as Scipio in Albert Camus' Caligula directed by Sidney Lumet.

[4] He also played Pasquale in The Aspern Papers, directed by Margaret Webster, Antipholus in the 1963 Off-Broadway revival The Boys from Syracuse, Laertes in Joseph Papp's Hamlet, and Lord Byron in the Lincoln Center production of Tennessee Williams' Camino Real with Al Pacino.

David was featured in the principal casts and on the original studio albums of such Broadway musicals as Wildcat[6] with Lucille Ball,[7] 1776,[8][9] with William Daniels, Alan Jay Lerner's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Other feature film credits include The Last Mile (1959), The Party's Over (1965) with Oliver Reed, Riot (1969), The Betsy (1978), with Laurence Olivier, Fort Apache, The Bronx with Paul Newman (1981), and The Exorcist III (1990).

He appeared in episodes of Bonanza, The Big Valley, Charlie's Angels, Mary Tyler Moore, Murphy Brown, Party of Five, Murder, She Wrote, Will & Grace, and Law & Order.