Martin Balsam (November 11, 1919 – February 13, 1996) was an American actor.

Natural to the Jewish family in the Bronx, New York, he studied dramatics at a New School in New York City and then served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Within 1947 he was selected by Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg to be the streaming video player in the ''Actors' Studio television program & went inside to come out in the total of televisiin plays in the Fifties and returned often to television as a guest star on many dramas.

Balsam appeared inside such films when On the Waterfront, 12 Angry Men (as Juror #1), Psycho, Cape Fear (1962) as a police captain, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Seven Days in May, Catch-22, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and The Delta Force (movie).

around 1965 he won an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role when Arnold Burns, a professional brother of the geek non-conformist & unemployed kiddie-indicate writer Jason Robards, Jr. inside A Thousand Clowns.

Around 1967 he won the Tony Award for his appearance in the 1967 Broadway production of ''You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running''.

He married & divorced actress Joyce Van Patten. Their girl, Talia Balsam, was natural January 1, 1960.