An intense, quixotic performer, Silver, a native New Yorker, escaped serving in Vietnam by traveling through Asia and Russia in the 1960s on an intelligence-gathering mission for the CIA (and getting arrested at least once). Back in the USA, he taught school for about a year in Connecticut, before moving to New York, where he made his stage debut in 1971. Silver spent the '70s acting in off-Broadway and regional productions. He made his Broadway debut as a replacement in Mike Nichols' production of David Rabe's "Hurlyburly" (1984-85). Nichols also teamed the actor with Marlo Thomas and Olympia