Steve Sterner is between jobs. And here’s betting you’ve never held down either of them. Soon, he’ll take up residency as the accompanist to a silent film festival at Film Forum. His last gig was as a cast member of “A Novel Romance” at Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre, the only New York theater still performing in that once mighty theatrical language.

Sounds like too many Yiddish-speaking, silent-film accompanists you already know? Well, then, how about this: he’s also a part-time cruciverbalist. (For you laymen, that’s a maker of crossword puzzle).

A man of such arcane talents could only patch together a living in New York City. In fact, this diverse metropolis has even given him the opportunity to combine his gifts; a couple of his Folksbiene roles, including the most recent, have required him to tickle the ivories. “I’ve gotten me some good jobs because of my piano-playing,” he affirmed, bending his long angular face into a dinner of scrambled eggs and bacon at the Edison Cafe. (He loves eggs, but not being a cook or an early riser, seldom gets to eat them.)

Piano lessons began at the age of 10. No one had to twist his arm to study up on music. He would take two scores out of the library every week – musicals, operas, operettas – and sight-read them at his Bronx home. “You know how parents bother their kids?, ‘Practice, practice!’?” he asked. “My mother had to say, ‘Stop already! I can’t take anymore!'”

Nobody ever asks him to stop or tells him what to play at Film Forum, the Greenwich Village revival house where he has been the house pianist for years. Whenever a silent flick is scheduled (a relatively frequent occurrence), director of repertory programming Bruce Goldstein gives him a holler. The next such event is “Oscar’s First Year,” a festival running February 25 through March 3, spotlighting the films honored by the Academy during its birth season, 1927-28.

Some titles, such as King Vidor’s “The Crowd,” are familiar to Mr. Sterner. They require only a short trip to his home library of film scores, where he keeps compositions for roughly 300 silents. For each feature, he has composed a few musical themes, upon which he elaborates and improvises during the live performance. Following their debut, these tunes, along with a five to 13 page synopsis of the movie, are stowed away in alphabetical order for future use. Films new to his experience, such as “Wings,” which won the first Best Picture Oscar, are from scratch propositions, and will demand a pre-run viewing to produce the necessary notes.

He stumbled into his uncommon livelihood at a party. Friend Wayne Daigrepont, an avid cartoon film collector and employee at the old Thalia revival house, was screening a few shorts. “At this one point, he showed this silent Coco the Clown cartoon,” he told in a deep, resonant voice – a storytelling voice. “He asked if I would play for it. I played stupid little songs for seven, eight minutes. He said, ‘That was great. We’re going to be showing Greta Garbo’s ‘Flesh and the Devil’ at the Thalia. You want to play it?'”

Mr. Sterner declined, but, when Mr. Daigrepont said he would then do it himself, reconsidered. “I thought, ‘If I do it it’s going to be bad. If Wayne does it, it will be a disaster.'” The management liked what they heard and asked him back. When Mr. Goldstein traded in a job at the Thalia for one at Film Forum, Mr. Sterner followed, thus becoming one of a very select fraternity. He knows them all. Donald Sosin plays silents for Museum of the Moving Image and BAM Rose Cinemas. Ben Model plays for Silent Clowns Series at the Makor-Steinhardt Center of the 92nd St Y and the Museum of Modern Art. Stuart Oderman also plays at Museum of Modern Art.

“I’m an entertainer, a performer,” explained Mr. Sterner, 53. “I like to move people, especially to make them laugh. My eyes are on the film 90% of the time. I’m playing what I see. My favorite films as a player are the Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd films. They’re hysterical. It’s a great feeling when those films get laughs and I’m playing the piano. And if something I’m doing makes the laugh a little bigger, it’s even better.”

It must be a letdown, then, to slog through the treacly, trilling cadences soapy romances cry out for. Mr. Sterner’s eyes bug out under bushy brows at the effrontery of the suggestion. “A love story is a pleasure!” he snorted. “I do become treacly! I do! I don’t play cliches. I’m treacly in my own way. When I hear a sniffle, I feel it’s basically because of that film, but my contribution is goosing that sniffle.”

Music is a Sterner family tradition. His uncle Samuel Sterner was the leader of a New York-based choir once famous throughout the nation. It was Sam’s wife, Rose, also a pianist, who arranged for nephew Steve to receive his first audition at the Folksbiene – a part in a Sylvia Regan play. He turned down the role for a more lucrative assignment, but went on to work for the Folksbiene four times.

Yiddish filled his ears while he was growing up. It was the language his parents used to mask sensitive conversations from their son. “Once they realized I could understand,” he remembered. “They spoke Polish.” Still, he did not know the tongue fluently when first cast at the Folksbiene. So how did he get through the part? “I memorized my lines.”(That old actor’s trick.) Ten years later, he can make his way – poorly, he says – through a Yiddish conversation.

To help us understand his facility with puzzles, Mr. Sterner again journeys back to Pelham Parkway. “When I was in grade school, my teacher would put division problems on the blackboard. I’d solve them and go up to the teacher and say, ‘I’m finished. Can you give me some more?’ “TV Guide’s crosswords led to the New York Times and then the Sunday Times. When he had mastered them all, he started making his own and sending them in. There were several rejections, but then came the red-letter day the Times published a Sterner crossword.

“It was a phase of my life,” he said (he’s since gone back to solving rather than creating). “I go through phases. I have a very addictive personality. That’s one of the reasons I don’t have a computer. If I had one, I’d get this cartridge for this game and….” He inserts another forkful of eggs and scans the grand mundanity of the Edison Cafe’s lunch counter. “I don’t know from fancy places. I’m a down-to-earth kind of guy. A diner guy. I love coffee shops. They’re getting hard to find.”

So are Yiddish-speaking, silent movie-accompanying cruciverbalists. “I’m not going to get rich playing for silent films. I’m not going to get rich making puzzles. I’m not going to get rich as an actor, unless some miracle happens. But these are the things I love.”