Button-eyed and dark-haired, Silverman has been playing leading roles since the mid-1980s when he came to prominence on the Broadway and L.A. stages and on tour as Eugene Morris Jerome, the incarnation of the young Neil Simon in the playwright's autobiographical "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (1983). As the centerpiece of a family of New York Jews during the Depression, he was at once manically funny and very touching as Eugene came of age and began to discover himself as a writer. Simon was so impressed with the young actor that he used him in the 1986 film version of the play.Silverman's first
