Gerald G. Bamman (born September 18, 1941) is an American retired actor and playwright. He is best known for playing Frank McCallister, the ill-tempered uncle of Macaulay Culkin's character in the films Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), and has also guest starred in several television series.
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Early life and education
Bamman was born on September 18, 1941, in Independence, Kansas, the son of Mary M. (née Farrell) and Harry W. Bamman. He studied at St. Francis de Sales School and later graduated from New York University with an MFA degree.
Career
Bamman appeared with Fran Brill and Alyssa Milano in Old Enough (1984) and also in the Michael J. Fox film The Secret of My Success (1987). He had a minor role in Cocktail (1988) before portraying his most notable character, Uncle Frank McCallister in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1990 and 1992, respectively. Bamman improvised the scene in Home Alone 2 where Frank is in the shower and Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) walks in on him. "I love the shower scene, even though I don’t think it was the funniest scene in the film," he told the Metro in 2020. "But it was great fun to shoot, because I really had fun padding it out. [The director] Chris [Columbus] started to give me directions and choreograph the scene and I said, 'Wait, wait, just let me show you what I've done, and what I have in mind'. And he bought it."
