Paul Sand

At the age of 11, he started at Viola Spolin's Children's Theatre Company. From here, he attended Los Angeles State College before moving to Paris when he was 18. In Paris, Sand met Marcel Marceau, who was so impressed by his talents that he asked Sand to join his touring mime troupe.

In 1960, along with Alan Arkin and others, Sand was a cast member of The Second City improvisational comedy troupe in Chicago. In 1966, he co-starred with Linda Lavin and Jo Anne Worley in the off-Broadway production The Mad Show, inspired by Mad Magazine.

In 1971, Sand received a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his work on Broadway in Paul Sills' Story Theatre and two Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Performances on Broadway in Story Theatre and Metamorphosis. One of Sand's fellow cast members in Story Theatre was actress Valerie Harper, who, in 1970, had been signed to play Rhoda Morgenstern on the CBS-TV situation comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show. During that show's first season, Sand was cast as Robert C. Brand, a tax auditor, who falls in love with Mary Richards (Moore) in the 11th episode "1040 or Fight". MTM Enterprises produced Friends and Lovers, in which Sand portrayed Robert Dreyfuss, a double bass player in the Boston Symphony Orchestra who falls in love easily but has little success with women. It premiered in the fall of 1974. Despite some favorable reviews and decent ratings, it was considered a disappointment and was cancelled in January 1975 after fifteen episodes had been filmed.

Sand also appeared in such motion pictures as The Hot Rock with Zero Mostel, The Second Coming of Suzanne alongside Sondra Locke, and The Main Event starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal.

In the fall of 1986, Sand, along with comedian Rosie O'Donnell, joined the cast of the NBC sitcom Gimme A Break starring Nell Carter, then approaching its sixth year on prime-time television.