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Charles Grodin and Accountants’ Movie Roles


Charles Grodin passed away last week after an illustrious movie career. It also brought back thoughts of one of my favorite movie roles where he played the accountant helping the “President” played by Kevin Kline in the movie Dave trim costs so the First Lady’s homeless project could be funded. I just loved those scenes.

Another accountant role by Grodin was in Midnight Run. Charles Grodin, playing accountant Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas, was on the lam with ledgers that would send his bosses up the river, and also with $15 million he embezzled from them.

Other movies with accountant roles I liked are listed here in no special order.

  • Moonstruck: Cher plays Loretta, an accountant. This movie has other qualities that also make it a winner.
  • The Accountant: Where Ben Affleck plays a hitman with being an accountant as a cover. Or is he an accountant with him being a hitman so he could pick up a few extra bucks? Anna Kendrick also plays an accountant. This is a pretty violent film.
  • The Producers:Accountant Leo Bloom, played by Gene Wilder, hatches the plan for a Broadway flop.
  • Prizzi’s Honor: The cover for Kathleen Turner’s mob assassin character was as a tax expert.
  • Schindler’s List: The real-life person, Itzhak Stern, played by Ben Kingsley, who typed and maintained the list was an accountant.
  • The Untouchables:Oscar Wallace was a tax accountant, played by Charles Martin Smith, who figured out how to get Capone on tax evasion charges.
  • Mobsters: A 1991 movie with Patrick Dempsey as Meyer Lansky, who was known as the “Accountant for the Mob.”
  • It’s a Wonderful Life: An accountant appears at the end of the movie tallying up the collections for George Bailey on an adding machine (perhaps this might be a stretch). He is George’s Cousin Eustace, played by Charles Williams.
  • The Shawshank Redemption: Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, gave estate tax advice and prepare tax returns. He also helped the warden hide his graft money and figured out how to steal it from the warden. This is a great movie with Tim as well as Morgan Freeman.
  • Same Time, Next Year:Accountant, played by Alan Alda, has a once-a-year affair with Ellen Burstyn’s character when he travels to the West Coast to get her tax information.
  • Ghostbusters: Has Rick Moranis playing tax accountant Louis Tully in a pretty prominent role.

Note that Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan passed the CPA exam, but I never read about him or saw him in a movie doing anything “accountant-like,” so I do not feel he qualifies as playing an accountant.

here are many others and if interested, you can do a web search for accountant movie roles and come up with a lot more. If you have favorites not listed here let me know. Enjoy!

If you have any tax, business, financial, leadership or management issues you want to discuss please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].


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