Gabriel W. "Gabe" KaplanUS Search "Gabe Kaplan" (born March 31, 1945) is an American comedian, actor and professional poker player. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for his role as Gabriel "Gabe" Kotter in the 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, but he has become more visible in recent years in relation to the popularity of poker, especially the "No-Limit Texas Hold-'Em" type, particularly as co-host and joint commentator, with A.J. Benza, on previous seasons of High Stakes Poker on GSN. For the upcoming season of High Stakes Poker Kaplan will co-host with fellow poker proffessional Kara Scott.

Acting career

As a boy, Kaplan had aspirations of being a Major League Baseball player. However, he was unable to make the roster of even a minor league team and decided to pursue other interests. He began working as a bellman at a hotel in Lakewood, New Jersey. Touring comedians would sometimes perform at the hotel, and Kaplan began to work toward his own career as a stand-up comedian.

Kaplan's comedy was successful, and he toured the country with his act based on his childhood experiences in Brooklyn. He appeared five times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from May 1973 to December 1974. During this period he also recorded the comedy album Holes and Mello-Rolls, which included long routines about his high-school days, among other topics; the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, whose central characters he helped Eric Cohen and Alan Sacks create and whose core format he helped them to develop, was in part based on his comedy act. In the sitcom, Kaplan played Gabe Kotter, who returns as a teacher to the dysfunctional high school where he had himself been a student. The series ran from 1975 to 1979. After Welcome Back, Kotter, Kaplan continued with his stand-up act and was in several movies, and portrayed comic Groucho Marx in a one-man show. In 1981, he starred in the TV series Lewis & Clark, which ran for one season.