Incisive, gifted character player of extremely wide stage experience. Although the versatile Zerbe has played many roles, his distinctive hooded eyes and flashy but controlled intensity have made him especially adept at playing predatory thugs, cruel schemers, and unsympathetic bureaucrats. A California native, Zerbe left Pomona College at age 19 and hitchhiked to New York to begin a career on the New York stage. He studied at the Stella Adler Theater Studio and, after a brief stint in the Air Force, became a member, for one to four years at a time, of various repertory theater companies in
