Lee Cobb performed summer stock with the Group Theatre (New York) in 1936, when they summered at Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut. During World War II Cobb served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces. Cobb entered films in the 1930s, successfully playing middle-aged and even older men while he was still a youth. He was cast as the Kralahome in the 1946 non-musical film Anna and the King of Siam. He also played the sympathetic doctor in The Song of Bernadette and appeared as James Coburn’s supervisor in the spy spoofs In Like Flint and Our Man Flint. He reprised his role of Willy Loman in the 1966 CBS television adaptation of Death of a Salesman, which included Gene Wilder, James Farentino, Bernie Kopell and George Segal. Cobb was nominated for an Emmy Award for the performance. Mildred Dunnock, who had co-starred in both the original stage version and the 1951 film version, again repeated her role as Linda, Willy’s devoted wife. In 1957, he appeared in Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men as the abrasive Juror #3. In 1959, on CBS’ DuPont Show of the Month, he starred in the dual roles of Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote in the play I, Don Quixote, which years later became the musical Man of La Mancha. Cobb also appeared as Wyoming ranch owner Judge Henry Garth in the first four seasons of the long-running NBC western television series The Virginian. His co-stars were James Drury, Doug McClure, Roberta Shore, Gary Clarke, Randy Boone, Clu Gulager and Diane Roter. In 1968 his performance as King Lear with Stacy Keach as Edmund, René Auberjonois as the Fool and Philip Bosco as Kent achieved the longest run (72 performances) for the play in Broadway history. One of his final film roles was that of police detective Lt. Kinderman in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist.

Lee Cobb appeared alongside British actor Kenneth Griffiths in an ABC television documentary on the American Revolution called “Suddenly an Eagle,” which was broadcast six months after his death. Lee Cobb died of a heart attack in February 1976 in Woodland Hills, California, and was buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. He was survived by his second wife, Mary Hirsch. His death came the day before his Exodus (1960) co-star Sal Mineo was murdered. He was inducted, posthumously, into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. Lee J. Cobb’s wife from 1940 to 1950s was Yiddish-theater and film actress Helen Beverley (1916—2011). They had a daughter together, Julie Cobb.