Lou Jacobi, who acted in a wide range of project on both the stage and the screen over several decades, died on Oct. 23, 2009, at his home in Manhattan. He was 95. Mr. Jacobi originated roles in Broadway plays by Neil Simon, Woody Allen and Paddy Chayefsky, specializing in ethnic portrayals and often playing Jewish characters. He was Mr. Van Daan, one the Jews hiding from the Nazies in a house in Amsterdam in the original production of The Diary of Anne Frank. He repeated the role in the subsequent film. He was in the cast of Chayefsky's The Tenth Man in 1959 and was Walter Hollander in Allen's comedy Don't Drink the Water.

Neil Simon used the portly, balding, mustachioed Mr. Jacobi's sad sack comic skills in both his debut, Come Blow Your Horn (he was the hero's father) and as a replacement for the role of aging vaudevillian Al Lewis in The Sunshine Boys. He was featured in 1971's Unlikely Heroes, which was based on the stories of Philip Roth and supported Carol Burnett in the musical Fade Out—Fade In.

Movies included "Irma la Douce," "Next Stop, Greenwich Village," “My Favorite Year” (1982), “Arthur” (1981), “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex” and “Avalon” (1990).

He was born Louis Harold Jacobovitch on Dec. 28, 1913, in Toronto. He made his stage debut in 1924 at a Toronto theater, playing a violin prodigy in The Rabbi and the Priest.

Mr. Jacobi married Ruth Ludwin in 1957. She died in 2004. He is survived by a brother, Avrom Jacobovitch, and a sister, Rae Gold, both of Toronto.