Harold Huber

Harold Huber was a versatile American actor whose career spanned three decades, encompassing film, stage, radio, and early television. Born Harold Joseph Huberman on December 5, 1909, in the Bronx, he grew up in a Jewish immigrant family and displayed an early talent for debate and writing at New York University, where he edited the controversial campus magazine The Medley. After briefly attending Columbia Law School, he seized his first Broadway role in 1930, adopting the stage name Harold Huber, and quickly moved into a prolific film career, debuting in Central Park in 1932 and appearing in nearly one hundred pictures throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He became known for his ability to adopt a wide range of accents, playing characters such as the stool‑pigeon Nunnheim in The Thin Man (1934) and the Japanese‑American Ito Nakayama in Little Tokyo, U.S.A. (1942), as well as numerous police officers in the Charlie Chan series. In addition to his screen work, Huber achieved fame on radio as Hercule Poirot in the 1945 series The Adventures of M. Hercule Poirot and later on CBS’s daily Mystery of the Week, showcasing his skill in voice acting. His television debut came in 1950 with the short‑lived drama I Cover Times Square, which he also produced. Huber’s final stage appearance was a 1958 off‑Broadway revival of Frank Wedekind’s Lulu, and his last TV roles were guest spots on The Phil Silvers Show. He died during surgery on September 29, 1959, leaving behind his wife Ethel and daughter Margaret, and is buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Queens. Huber’s legacy endures through his extensive body of work, which exemplifies the industrious spirit of Hollywood’s Golden Age.