His other notable film roles include Juror #1 in 12 Angry Men (1957), private detective Milton Arbogast in Psycho (1960), Hollywood agent O.J.

Berman in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Bernard B. Norman in The Carpetbaggers (1964), Lieutenant Commander Chester Potter, the ship doctor, in The Bedford Incident (1965), Colonel Cathcart in Catch-22 (1970), Admiral Husband E. Kimmel in Tora!

[4] He studied at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the German director Erwin Piscator and then served in the United States Army Air Forces from 1941 to 1945 during World War II, achieving the rank of Sergeant.

[12] In 1968, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in the 1967 Broadway production of You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running.

He played Dr. Rudy Wells when the Martin Caidin novel Cyborg was adapted as a TV-movie pilot for The Six Million Dollar Man (1973), though he did not reprise the role for the subsequent series.

In 1975, he appeared as James Arthur Cummins in the Joe Don Baker police drama Mitchell, a film that was eventually featured in a highly popular episode of the comedy film-riffing series Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1993.

Balsam made his film debut with an uncredited role in On the Waterfront (1954), directed by his Actors Studio colleague Elia Kazan.

Balsam played an official of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey investigating mob involvement in the city's waterfront unions.

In 1960, he appeared in one of his best-remembered roles as private investigator Arbogast in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, culminating in a scene in which Mrs. Bates chases him down a flight of stairs to stab him to death.

"[13] After his lines were recorded, director Stanley Kubrick decided "Marty just sounded a little bit too colloquially American," and hired Douglas Rain to perform the role for the released film.

[14] Balsam also appeared in such notable films as Time Limit with Richard Widmark, Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, The Carpetbaggers with George Peppard and Alan Ladd, Seven Days in May with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, The Bedford Incident with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, The Man with James Earl Jones, Hombre with Paul Newman and Fredric March, Catch-22 with Alan Arkin and Jon Voight, Tora!

Balsam maintained close ties to Italy even after the end of the poliziottesco trend, traveling there for both professional and personal reasons, and starring in the Italian-produced television series Ocean and La piovra.