- Admitted in a 2006 interview on Late Show with David Letterman (1993) that the surly attitude he adopts on talk shows is an act he developed in order to be a more interesting guest. According to Grodin, he was scheduled to make his first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) in 1973, and was to be in the segment immediately following Diana Ross performing a medley of her hits. Realizing that he would bomb if he followed her as himself, he adopted this churlish character who has little patience for the questions of the host. Carson loved it and it became his trademark.
- Was close friends with actor Gene Wilder, who wanted Grodin to play the role of Charles/Pierre in Start the Revolution Without Me (1970), but Grodin declined, having committed to directing the original Broadway production of Lovers and Other Strangers (1970).
- Second wife (and widow) was author Elissa Durwood.
- His direction of "Lovers and Other Strangers" introduced him to Elaine May, who became his 'professional benefactor' and cast him in The Heartbreak Kid (1972).
- Longtime resident of Fairfield County's Wilton, Connecticut, until his death on May 18, 2021.
- Having already been cast as Captain Aarfy Aardvark in Catch-22 (1970), director Mike Nichols asked him to take over the role of Colonel Cathcart when the original actor did not work out. As the role was written for an older man, old age make-up was experimented with for several days, until it was decided to cast Martin Balsam instead, and Grodin returned to his original role.
- Attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. He later studied drama at HB Studio in Greenwich Village, New York City.
- He auditioned as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967), but was never offered the role. Mike Nichols still offered him a role in Catch-22 (1970), which he was already scheduled to direct at the time.
- Had appeared in three movies alongside Bonnie Hunt: He played her husband in Beethoven (1992) and Beethoven's 2nd (1993), and they both appeared and never shared screen time in Dave (1993).
- While he enjoyed playing Bonnie Hunt's husband later in his acting career in Beethoven (1992) and Beethoven's 2nd (1993) in real life he was actually 26 years older than she was, even old enough to be her father.
- Daughter with Julia Ferguson: Marion Grodin. Son with Elissa Durwood: Nick Grodin.
- His father, Theodore Isadore Grodin, was born in Pennsylvania, to Russian Jewish parents. His mother, Lena (Singer), was a Jewish emigrant from Yanov, Tatsinsky District, Russia (her father was born in Brest, Belarus and her mother was born in Poland).
- When he was first starting out in show business, he considered changing his name to a more showbiz sounding name such as Hutch Saxony, Rommie Genta or Christopher Fargo. Of these, the name Hutch stuck around as a nickname and Grodin would often be referenced to as such by close friends.
- In a 1997 interview with Charlie Rose he admitted he stopped acting in 1994 for two reasons. One, was the fact that he had a young son at the time and being in different locations for movies and travelling constantly took him away from his family. He said if he was to continue to work in media he wanted to do so in New York City as it was close to his home. The second, was he felt when he was an actor he was never given the opportunity to discuss political and social issues in worry of offending his friends and co-stars with his views. In 1995 a year after he took a hiatus from acting CNBC offered him a talk show he hosted interviewing celebrities and political figures working from their studio in New York which aired for four years. He continued to enjoy doing political commentary and in 2000 a year after its premiere he took on the role of a commentator at the end of every episode of 60 Minutes II (1999) paralleling commentaries of the late Andy Rooney on its sister program 60 Minutes (1968). He and Rose were actually colleagues during his tenure on the program, where he stayed until 2003. He returned to acting in 2006 with a role in The Ex (2006) and continued to act in mutliple roles until his death in May 2021.
- Has one granddaughter: Geneva.
- He has appeared in one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Rosemary's Baby (1968).
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