Paul Manfred Glaser was born March 25, 1943 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the youngest child and only son of Dorothy and Samuel Glaser, a MIT graduate and well-known Boston architect. He grew up in Brookline and Newton. He was raised Jewish, and although Dorothy was an agnostic, and the family did not observe the Shabbat, the family did celebrate the religion's major holidays, including Glaser's own bar mitzvah. Samuel designed a shul in Rhode Island. Glaser attended the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School until 1961 before transferring to the Cambridge School of Weston, completing high school. Glaser attended Tulane University, where he was roommates with film director Bruce Paltrow, majoring in theater and English with a minor in architecture and graduated in 1966. He was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. He earned a master's degree in fine arts from Boston University in acting and directing in 1967.
Glaser made his film debut as Perchick in the 1971 film version of the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
He found fame playing Detective Dave Starsky opposite David Soul in the television series Starsky and Hutch, of which he directed several episodes. It ran for four seasons (1975–1979) on ABC.[citation needed]
After the series, Glaser continued to act on television and in films, and directed the 1987 film The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as the 1992 film The Cutting Edge. He also directed episodes of several TV series, including Miami Vice, Robbery Homicide Division and Judging Amy. Glaser returned to the big screen in 2003 in Something's Gotta Give, as Diane Keaton's ex-husband, and with a brief cameo in the 2004 film version of Starsky & Hutch, in which Starsky was played by Ben Stiller. He directed the children's film Kazaam starring Shaquille O'Neal. He guest starred in "The Scarlet Letter", the October 1, 2009 episode of CBS's The Mentalist.

Return to Paul Michael Glaser Autograph Profile