Eli Wallach was born in Brooklyn in 1915; the Wallach family were virtually the only Jews in a tough Italian neighborhood. Many years later, he was cast to play Murder Inc.'s notorious crime boss, Albert Anastasia, in a television drama. Being schooled as a "method actor" at New York's famous Actors Studio (other alumni included Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Karl Malden, John Forsythe, Maureen Stapleton, Patricia Neal, and his future wife, Anne Jackson), Eli was uncertain how to play the gangster, because he had no "feel" for the character. He researched hard, asking lots of people what Anastasia was like and how he had become such a gangster. He even visited the judge who, as a young lawyer, had defended and won two acquittals for Anastasia. Alas, the judge could give him no insights. It wasn't until he was in Hollywood, about to shoot the production, when someone suggested that he look at a film of Anastasia's brother Tony being questioned by the Kefauver Crime Commission in Washington. When Tony was asked where he presently lived, he said "167 Union Street." Eli suddenly knew exactly how to play Albert Anastasia, because he had been raised at 166 Union Street.

Eli took to acting early, appearing in his first play at fifteen. After receiving his B.A. from Texas University ("an oil-rich school that charged only $30 a year for out-of-state applicants") and an MS in Education at CCNY (fortunately, he flunked the teacher's certification test), he set out to become a professional actor. Before he could make any headway, he was drafted into the army on the eve of America's entry into World War II, where he rose to the rank of captain in the army's Medical Administrative Corps. After the war, Eli became one of the original members of the famed Actors Studio in New York City, gradually progressing from small to major roles on Broadway. His first film was in 1956, as the star of Tennessee Williams' controversial Baby Doll, directed by his friend Elia Kazan. Since then, Eli has acted in over seventy movies, the latest being Mama's Boy, a comedy with Diane Keaton and Jeff Daniels slated for release sometime around December..

In a career that has spanned over sixty-seven years, Eli has played many different roles, including a rabbi, psychiatrist, cotton gin manager, tow truck driver, liquor store owner, and most frequently, gangsters and Western heavies. In 1986, he was cast in the British docudrama production of The Impossible Spy as the head of Israel's secret intelligence agency, the Mossad. Known only as "Yakov," Eli's character recruited a young Arabic-speaking Israeli named Eli Cohen, to impersonate a Syrian businessman who cultivated contacts within the highest echelon of the Syrian government. Before he was exposed, arrested and hanged for espionage, Cohen had risen to third in line for the Syrian presidency. It also allowed him to tour the strategic Golan Heights, whose hidden artillery battery locations he secretly passed onto the Mossad. Forty years ago, in June 1967, that vital information helped the Israelis win the Six-Day War.