Gabe Kaplan (1983)

Kaplan’s Bio from the 1983 Program:

GABE KAPLAN (Groucho) – made his first appearance on the Tonight Show ten years ago, and since then the road has been paved with success for this Brooklyn-born comedian.

Though he hoped he would have a chance to play major-league baseball following his graduation from Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High School, his all hit/no field abilities erased those plans for his future. While working as a bellboy in a Lakewood, New Jersey resort hotel, he began studying the comedians during their nightly performances.

Forsaking his family’s desires that he pursue a professional career, Mr. Kaplan began working on material of his own for a stand-up act. Appearing at small clubs in Manhattan and Brooklyn, he finally put it all together at the Comedy Workshop where he was spotted by a Tonight Show talent coordinator and booked for the show.

After playing in nightclubs and colleges, and making numerous appearances on the TV-talk show circuit, Mr. Kaplan co-created and starred in the ABC-TV hit Welcome Back, Kotter, which had a five-year run on the network and is now in syndication worldwide.

Mr. Kaplan made his motion picture debut starring in the Columbia Pictures release Fast Break. He followed that with two films released in the summer of 1981-Columbia’s Nobody’s Perfect, and Avco Embassy’s Tulips.

A long time amateur poker player, Mr. Kaplan in recent years joined the ranks of the professionals, playing in and winning the World Series of Poker in 1980. He was host of the Gabe Kaplan Celebrity Showdown poker tournament for cystic fibrosis in 1979, and raised thousands of dollars for CF during his three years as their honorary chairman.

Despite his theatrical success in Groucho, Mr. Kaplan has not forgotten his roots as a nightclub performer and is fulfilling club dates this summer around the country.

Still single, he is an avid sports fan preferring tennis and basketball as a participant, and virtually anything resembling organized activity as a spectator. A voracious reader, he is always working on a screenplay and developing other television projects.