Mandel "Mandy" Bruce Patinkin (/pəˈtɪŋkɪn/; born November 30, 1952) is an American actor and singer, known for his work in musical theatre, television, and film.

For his work in television he has earned seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning Outstanding Leading Actor in a Drama Series for Chicago Hope in 1995.

[16] From 1975 through 1976, Patinkin played the Player King and Fortinbras, Prince of Norway in a Broadway revival of Hamlet, with Sam Waterston in the leading role.

He had his first film role as a Pool Man in the political comedy The Big Fix (1978) starring Richard Dreyfus, John Lithgow, and F. Murray Abraham.

Patinkin had his first success in musical theater when he starred as Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita, opposite Patti LuPone, on Broadway in 1979.

Patinkin won acclaim for his role as an Orthodox Jewish man Avigdor in Barbra Streisand's romantic drama epic Yentl (1983), which earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Corliss wrote, "For her male co-star she hired Mandy Patinkin, who has wrapped his crystalline Broadway tenor voice around Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber, then gave him no songs to sing".

[20] Veron Scott of United Press International wrote, "When Patinkin is in a scene it is difficult to focus on anyone else, including Streisand who is at her very best in Yentl.

"[21] Patinkin noted that both Ragtime (1981) and Daniel (1983) weren't as successful as he had hoped commercially and critically saying, "When you care about the content of a film, you want people to see it".

Patinkin also was able to explore his Jewish roots while making the film saying, "I also spent a couple of weeks in Ohr Semach in Jerusalem at a yeshiva, studying the Talmud and attending lectures.

[3][23] Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote, "Seurat, here embodied commandingly by Mandy Patinkin, could well be a stand-in for Mr. Sondheim, who brings the same fierce, methodical intellectual precision to musical and verbal composition that the artist brought to his pictorial realm.

Variety praised his performance writing, "Patinkin especially is a joy to watch and the film comes to life when his longhaired, scruffy cavalier is on screen.

He also portrayed Alfred de Musset in James Lapine's period drama Impromptu (1991) starring Hugh Grant, Judy Davis, Emma Thompson, and reunited with Bernadette Peters.

[31] In January 1993, he took over the role of Marvin from Michael Rupert in the Broadway musical Falsettos and starred opposite Barbara Walsh, Stephen Bogardus, and Chip Zien.

[33] In 1994, Patinkin took the role of Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on CBS's Chicago Hope[3] for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

He also acted in numerous films such as the drama The Doctor (1991), The Music of Chance (1993), the comedy Life with Mikey (1993), the action adventure Squanto: A Warrior's Tale (1994), and the romantic mystery Lulu on the Bridge (1998).

John O'Connor from The New York Times praised his performance writing, "[Patinkin] is surprisingly restrained...His Quasimodo is a gentle and quite moving creature, shyly hiding his facial disfigurations in the shadows".

Connor praised the production writing that its "oddly old-fashioned, paying a kind of homage, as does Mr. Patinkin's performance, to the Laughton film.

[36] In 1999, Patinkin co-starred in the second Sesame Street film, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, as Huxley, an abusive, childish, sadistic, and greedy man with abnormally large eyebrows, who steals whatever he can grab and then claims it as his own.

[37][38] Patinkin returned to Broadway in 2000 in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party, portraying Burrs acting opposite Toni Collette as Queenie.

[43] In later episodes of Criminal Minds, during the 2007–08 season, Jason Gideon was written out of the series and replaced by Special Agent David Rossi (played by Joe Mantegna).

He played a patient with Lou Gehrig's disease injured in a car accident who asks the doctors at Three Rivers Hospital to take him off life support so his organs can be donated.

[57] Also in 2022, Patinkin was the narrator of the miniseries Indivisible: Healing Hate, a Paramount+ show documenting the events that led to the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

[58] In 2024, Patinkin starred as Rufus Cotesworth, a renowned former detective, now heading private security for a business family, in ABC Studios' TV Series Death and Other Details.

In May 2012, Patinkin delivered the opening speech at the Annual Convention of the Israeli Left, where he recounted his experiences during a visit to the West Bank with members of the Breaking the Silence organization.

[67] On December 21, 2015, on Charlie Rose on PBS, Patinkin spoke about his recent trip to Greece to help refugees from war-torn Syria and his acting role in the television series Homeland.

He stated that he wanted to help "create opportunity and better systems of living and existing, to give freedom, justice and dignity, quality of life to humanity all over the world.

"[68] Patinkin contributed to the children's book Dewey Doo-it Helps Owlie Fly Again: A Musical Storybook, inspired by Christopher Reeve.

[69] In 2020, Patinkin's and Grody's son, Gideon, began filming and photographing their daily lives, posting images and clips to multiple social media outlets.

[70] Later that year, Grody and Patinkin partnered with Swing Left, creating viral videos with their sons to encourage people to vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election.