Robert Elmer Balaban (born August 16, 1945 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American actor, author and director. The son of the late theater owner Elmer Balaban and the late actress Eleanor Balaban, he has appeared in films such as Catch-22, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Deconstructing Harry, Gosford Park (which he co-produced), Capote, The Monuments Men and The French Dispatch. Balaban has also worked numerous times with directors Christopher Guest and Wes Anderson. His television career includes a role on Seinfeld as a character based on former NBC executive Warren Littlefield (whom Balaban later played in the HBO film The Late Shift). Onstage, he created the role of Linus in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1967.
Balaban has directed Parents and episodes of Tales from the Darkside; Amazing Stories; Eerie, Indiana; Oz; The Twilight Zone, and Nurse Jackie. He is also the author of a series of children's novels about a bionic dog named McGrowl.
His cousin Nell Balaban is an actress in her own right.
