Ira Buchman \ John Pankow
Born and raised in Sheepshead Bay, N.Y., Ira is Paul's fraternal cousin, older by a few years.They've competed all their lives.

First referred to in episode three of the first season, Ira was introduced in the fifteenth episode. He is a sometime band leader of Ira and the Night-caps, who played at Paul and Jamie's wedding, as well as at their friends' wedding.

Ira also worked in his uncle Burt's sporting goods store and has since taken over its management. He made Paul a silent partner in the store due to the mistaken belief that Paul resents his inheriting the store. Ira loves to gamble, and often takes Paul with him on Atlantic City junkets, without Jamie's knowledge. On another trip, he takes the house for $700 after asking Paul not to give him money. When he remembers to, Ira attends Gamblers Anonymous meetings.

His connections at Belmont help find a final resting place for the ashes of Jamie's uncle Van.

Ira once advised Paul not to get involved with Jamie, advice that Paul correctly ignored, but Jamie is sufficiently used to Ira's ways now, to the point of referring to him as "my cousin Ira".

Ira was married in late 1973 to Marianne Lugasso (Cyndi Lauper); they were together for all of 6 months, officially divorcing after 20 years. But Ira has been playing the field for a long time.He had liaisons with one of Jamie's clients, Diane Caldwell ("Spy Girl"), with Lisa at Paul and Jamie's Wedding and then with the separated Fran, leading to Fran's possible pregnancy. After a brief liaison with Velma, he stumbled into a surprisingly steady relationship with Susannah Gould, even brushing off Paul rather than miss a date with her. That liaison dissolved without notice after season #3, and Ira is roaming again.

Ira lives at 196 West 93rd Street, apartment 6-S. He owns a car and has a cat named Roscoe that Murray appears to dislike.

John Pankow says that even before he was cast as a regular on "Mad About You," he immediately felt "in sync" with the character when he first guest-starred as Paul Buchmans (series star Paul Reiser) cousin Ira in five episodes during the 1992-93 season. "Ira is ambitious and has big dreams" says Pankow. "He is a musician who lives life to the fullest and has a lotta heart and spunk."

Pankow was born in St. Louis and raised in Chicago, one of nine children. His mother was a homemaker and his father was an advertising salesman in technical publishing. Pankow dabbled in acting while in high school and later majored in speech and performing arts at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. He left the university in his junior year after he attended a performance of David Mamet's "The American Buffalo" at the St. Nicholas Theatre in Chicago. Inspired by the play, he enrolled in the theatre's two-year acting program in order to concentrate solely on acting.

Following actress Kristine Sutherland, who he later married, he left Chicago and moved to New York in 1979, where he was cast a year later in the off-Broadway production of "The Slab Boys." There he won a part at his first audition, a PBS film entitled "Life on the Mississippi." He went on to perform in several off-Broadway productions including "Scheherazade," "Aristocrats," "Italian American Reconciliation," "Hunting Scenes," "Ice Cream/Hot Fudge" and the New York Shakespeare Festival's "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "Henry VIII." He subsequently made it to Broadway with "Serious Money," "The Iceman Cometh," and as Mozart in "Amadeus," one of his most notable roles to date.

Pankow notched his first film credit in 1985 as a Secret Service agent in "To Live and Die in L.A." His other feature films include "A Stranger Among Us," "Mortal Thoughts," "Year of the Gun," "Talk Radio" and "The Secret of My Success." On television he guest-starred on NBC's "Law & Order" as well as on "Miami Vice" and "Spenser: For Hire." In addition, he appeared in the TV movies "Life on the Mississippi" and "First Steps" and co-starred on NBC's daytime drama "The Doctors."

After several guest spots in the first season of "Mad About You," he was signed as a cast regular for the second season. During the 1994 hiatus of "Mad About You," he lent his talents to the annual Sundance June Film Lab. He also does commercial voice-overs.

Away from the set, Pankow enjoys visiting museums, reading and listening to music (especially opera and jazz), and he is a fan of all Chicago professional sports teams.

Having spent three months in Rome for a film shoot, he and his wife now consider themselves Italophiles. "We love to cook Italian," says Pankow. "At home, we go through vats of olive oil, garlic and other Italian staples."

Pankow and his wife live in Los Angeles with their daughter, Eleanor.

John Pankow's birthday is February 18.