Obituary: Sheldon Goldstein, an actor and TV programmer who led the U's media resources department

The term "Renaissance man" is often bandied about, but when it came to Sheldon Goldstein, it fit.

To educators, he was the demanding, but fair, director of media resources at the University of Minnesota, a job he landed after putting in 45 years as a teacher in the speech and communications department.

In the television world, he offered up educational programming for public television's KTCA for 40 years after it became the state's first noncommercial TV station in 1957. One of his most noteworthy contributions: Recruiting longtime friend Peter Graves, of "Mission: Impossible" fame, to narrate the 1970s-'80s documentary series "Matrix."

For theater lovers, he was an active performer, particularly in his later years, with appearances at Theater in the Round, Park Square Theatre and the Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company.

Goldstein passed away earlier this month at age 87.

In a 2003 Star Tribune review of the play "Burning Patience," critic Carolyn Petrie referred to Goldstein's performance as Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as "admirably nuanced" with a "charming insight into the man's character."

"He had a great voice and he knew how to use it," said Peter Moore, who directed Goldstein in a well-received 1993 production of "On Borrowed Time" that also included Moore's father, legendary broadcaster Dave Moore. "He didn't need to chew up the scenery. He just stood up there and told the truth."

"He wasn't a union member and finding decent, nonunion actors over the age of 50 could be a real challenge," he said. "It's so much better to have someone of a certain age actually play someone older than dress somebody up in a gray wig."

Goldstein was known as an easygoing actor with an infectious laugh, more than happy to let others be in charge.

It was a different case at the University of Minnesota, where he ran a tight ship and kept an eye out for innovation. Mary Kelley, who spent 25 years working for Goldstein as a video producer and program developer, credited him for dealing with a staff shortage in the mid-1960s by building a closed-circuit system that could provide mass instruction to 14,000 students a week in 35 programs.

"He was demanding, but just as much of himself as the people he supervised," Kelley said. "He would always listen to my point of view, but ultimately the decision was his."

Despite the authority he wielded, Goldstein didn't let it go to his head. Moore said that of all his father's friends, Goldstein was the only one they called by his first name ("everyone knew him as Shel").

Goldstein was preceded in death by his wife, Mimi. He is survived by sons Daniel, Richard and Marc.