Nov 30: Broadway, Movie and TV star "Mandy" Patinkin is 58 today.

Mandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin, who was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1952,  is a actor of stage and screen and a tenor vocalist.

Patinkin is a noted interpreter of the music of Stephen Sondheim and is known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park with George, Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden and Burrs in The Wild Party. He has also appeared in television series such as Chicago Hope, Dead Like Me and the first two seasons of Criminal Minds.

Mandy attended South Shore High School, Kenwood Academy, the University of Kansas, and Juilliard School of Drama. At Juilliard, he was a classmate of Kelsey Grammer. When the producers of the popular American sitcom Cheers were auditioning for the role of Dr. Frasier Crane, Patinkin suggested Grammer be considered for the part.

With Patti Lupone from "Evita"

After a few TV commercial and radio appearances, including the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in 1974, Patinkin had his first success in musical theater, where he played the part of Che in Evita on Broadway in 1979. Patinkin went on to win that year's Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical.

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He then moved to film, playing parts in movies such as Yentl and Ragtime. He returned to Broadway in 1984 to star in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, which saw him earn another Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.

Patinkin played Inigo Montoya in Rob Reiner's 1987 The Princess Bride  - which Patinkin considers his favorite role.

Over the next decade he continued to appear in various movies, such as Dick Tracy and Alien Nation. On Broadway, over the next decade, he appeared in the Tony Award-winning musical The Secret Garden for 706 performances.

He also released two solo albums, titled Mandy Patinkin and Dress Casual.

In 1994, he took the role of Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on Chicago Hope for which he won an Emmy Award. However, despite the award and the ratings success of the show, Patinkin left the show during the second season. He returned in 1999 but it was later cancelled in 2000.

Since Chicago Hope, Patinkin has appeared in a number of films. However, he has mostly performed as a singer, releasing three more albums. In 1995 he guest starred in The Simpsons in the episode "Lisa's Wedding" as Hugh Parkfield, Lisa's future English groom.

In 1998, he debuted his most personal project, Mamaloshen, a collection of traditional, classic, and contemporary songs sung entirely in Yiddish ("Mamaloshen" is Yiddish for "mother tongue.") The stage production of Mamaloshen was performed on and off–Broadway, and has toured throughout the country. The recording of Mamaloshen won the Deutschen Schallplattenpreis (Germany’s equivalent of the Grammy Award).

In 1999 he co-starred in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland as the villainous Huxley, who tries to steal Elmo's blanket.

He returned to Broadway in 2000 in the New York Shakespeare Festival's The Wild Party, earning another Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.

Recently, he has also been seen in the Showtime comedy-drama Dead Like Me as Rube Sofer. In 2004, he played a six–week engagement of his one–man concert at the Off Broadway complex Dodger Stages.

In September 2005, he debuted in the role of Jason Gideon, an experienced profiler just coming back to work after a series of nervous breakdowns, in the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds.

He is starring in the new musical Paradise Found, co-directed by Harold Prince and Susan Stroman, at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London.

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