Steven Hill (born Solomon Krakovsky; Yiddish: שלמה קראַקאָווסקי; February 24, 1922 – August 23, 2016) was an American actor.

His film roles include The Goddess (1958), A Child Is Waiting (1963), The Slender Thread (1965), Yentl (1983), Legal Eagles (1986), Raw Deal (1986), Running on Empty (1988), Billy Bathgate (1991), and The Firm (1993).

[9] After graduating from Garfield High School in 1939, Hill attended the University of Washington[10] and served four years in the United States Navy during World War II.

[5] Hill made his first Broadway stage appearance in Ben Hecht's A Flag Is Born in 1946, which also featured a young Marlon Brando.

[4] Hill said that his big break came when he landed a small part in the hit Broadway show Mister Roberts.

"[12] In 1947, Hill joined Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Julie Harris, among others, as one of the 50 applicants (out of about 700 interviewed) to be accepted by the newly created Actors Studio.

[18] The understudy was not ready to replace Hill, so Alfred Ryder, the play's director, stepped into the role of Freud for one performance.

He appeared in the original Robert Stack ABC/Desilu crime drama, The Untouchables episode "Jack 'Legs' Diamond," giving a compelling, cold, evil performance as the eponymous character, and a similar sinister role as a bedridden (following an accident), ruthlessly manipulative millionaire in "The White Knight," a 1966 black-and-white, third-season episode of The Fugitive, which starred David Janssen.

The phrase "Good morning, Mr. Briggs..." was a fixture early in each episode, where a sound or film recording he retrieved detailed the task he must accomplish.

[7] According to Desilu executive Herb Solow, William Shatner once burst into his office, claiming "Steve asked me how many Jews worked on Star Trek.

He was recruiting a minyon, a prayer group of 10 men, to worship together on top of the studio's highest building and only had six Jews so far from Mission.

"[4] Hill left acting in 1967 and moved to a Jewish community in Rockland County, New York, where he worked in writing and real estate.

White, in The Complete "Mission: Impossible" Dossier, quoted Hill as having said later, "I don't think an actor should act every single day.

"[23] Hill returned to work in the 1980s and 1990s, playing parental and authority-figure roles in such films as Yentl (1983), Garbo Talks (1984), Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, Heartburn (1986), Running on Empty (1988), The Boost (1988), Billy Bathgate (1991), and The Firm (1993).

Hill played New York District Attorney Bower in the 1986 comedy-drama Legal Eagles, foreshadowing his appearance as Adam Schiff in Law & Order.

[7] Hill became best known, to an even greater degree than from his role in Mission: Impossible, as Adam Schiff in the NBC TV drama series Law & Order, a part that he played for 10 seasons, from 1990 to 2000.

"[4] Hill earned an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Dramatic Series in 1999 for his work on Law & Order.

Hill said that he had gone home to Seattle ten years earlier and was "feeling depressed because I seemed to be leading an aimless existence.

"[15] Hill began to study Torah with Rabbi Yakov Yosef Twersky (1899–1968), the late Skverrer Rebbe,[32] and started adhering to Orthodox Judaism.