Jeffrey Tambor

A well-respected acting teacher who initially made his mark in regional theater, this chubby, balding everyman came to prominence on television playing pompous, pent-up and occasionally goofy characters. A recurring role on Three's Company led to a series-regular gig on the sitcom's short-lived spin-off, The Ropers, as the title characters' snotty neighbor. Once that series folded, the producers of Three's Company invited Tambor back for a variety of guest spots. From the '80s on, this consummate character actor (and Dr. Phil doppelganger) never lacked for small-screen work, alternating between dramas and comedies, but making his biggest impression in the latter. After a series of flop sitcoms (9 to 5, Mr. Sunshine, Max Headroom), he finally struck comedic gold in 1992 when he signed on as Garry Shandling's hilariously bombastic sidekick on the late-night talk-show spoof The Larry Sanders Show. During the show's six seasons, Tambor racked up four Emmy nods and parlayed his newfound fame into small but memorable feature-film roles (Girl, Interrupted, Malibu's Most Wanted) that capitalized on his stock-in-trade. In 2003, he won a plum dual role on the cult hit Arrested Development. Although initially only slated to appear in the pilot, Tambor so impressed creator Mitch Hurwitz (who had previously worked with the actor on the short-lived Everything's Relative) that he was promoted to series regular, essaying an imprisoned millionaire and his hippie twin brother, a pair of tour de force turns that earned him two more Emmy nominations. Although the series folded in the spring of 2006, Tambor was back on the tube that fall as the uptight member of the retirement-aged buddy show Twenty Good Years.