E.G. Marshall 12 Angry Men (1957)

Everett Eugene Marshall (1914–1998), known professionally as E.G. Marshall, played Juror 4 in 12 Angry Men (1957) — the stockbroker with the photographic memory, the room's most rigorous fact-handler, and the structural climax's holdout.

Marshall built a career on rigor

Marshall came out of the Federal Theatre Project in the late 1930s and worked steadily on Broadway through the 1940s — The Skin of Our Teeth, The Iceman Cometh, Waiting for Godot (1956, as Vladimir, opposite Bert Lahr's Estragon). By 1957 he was a Broadway leading man without a screen-defining role. His film credits to date — The Caine Mutiny (1954), The Left Hand of God (1955), The Mountain (1956) — had used him as the kind of professional men he would play for the rest of his life: doctors, lawyers, executives, prosecutors, men whose authority is procedural rather than charismatic.

"Mr. Marshall is one of those actors whose name is on no one's lips and on every casting list. He has spent forty years playing men who own ties." — Vincent Canby, The New York Times (1998 obituary, reprinted from 1979 profile)

Juror 4 is the film's structural opponent

Lee J. Cobb (in 12 Angry Men)'s Juror 3 is the film's emotional opponent — the holdout whose vote is personal. Marshall's Juror 4 is the structural one: the man whose conviction is genuinely held together by reasoning, who never raises his voice, never loses his composure, and never stops listening. The film's argument depends on him. If the new approach can dismantle Juror 4's case, it has dismantled the prosecution. If it cannot, it has only flattered itself.

Marshall plays him with almost no theatrical effects. He sits upright. He does not sweat. He does not loosen his tie until the rain begins. The voice is even, level, slightly cool. When he is wrong, he says he is wrong without dramatizing it. The "Not guilty" at the climax is delivered without affect — exactly the way the rest of his lines have been delivered, which is the point. See Juror 9 and the Eyeglass Marks.

"Mr. Marshall, as the methodical broker, makes that man's progress from rectitude to acquiescence the most quietly thrilling thing in the picture. He gives way without giving in. It is a great piece of restraint." — Bosley Crowther, The New York Times (April 15, 1957)

Marshall and Henry Fonda were close friends

Marshall and Henry Fonda had known each other since the 1940s and had appeared together in the original Broadway run of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1954). When Fonda put together the 12 Angry Men cast, Marshall was an early hire. The two men worked together again on Lumet's The Pursuit of Happiness (1971) and reconnected on television in the 1970s. (wikipedia)

After 12 Angry Men, the careers ran in parallel

Marshall went directly from 12 Angry Men into Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker (1965, as a doctor) and the The Defenders CBS legal drama (1961-65, with Robert Reed as his son), which won him two Best Actor Emmys and codified the Marshall persona — a New York lawyer with weight. He played Eisenhower in The Pueblo Affair (1973), the President in Superman II (1980), and Art Hockstader in The Best Man (1964). He worked steadily until the late 1990s.

Selected filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1954	The Caine Mutiny	Lt. Cmdr. Challee
1956	Waiting for Godot (Broadway)	Vladimir	With Bert Lahr
1957	12 Angry Men	Juror 4
1962	Cape Fear	District Attorney	J. Lee Thompson
1961-65	The Defenders (TV)	Lawrence Preston	Two Emmys
1964	The Best Man	Art Hockstader	Schaffner
1965	The Pawnbroker	The doctor	Lumet
1976	All the President's Men	Attorney General	Pakula