Stocky supporting actor who won an Oscar when he was cast against type as a lonely butcher in Marty
With his coarsely podgy features, bug eyes, gap-toothed grin and stocky build, Ernest Borgnine, who has died aged 95 of renal failure, seemed destined to remain one of nature's supporting actors in a string of sadistic and menacing parts. Instead he won an Oscar for a role which was the antithesis of all his previous characters.
In 1955, the producer Harold Hecht wanted to transfer Paddy Chayefsky's teleplay Marty to the big screen, with Rod Steiger in the title role, which he had created. But Steiger was filming Oklahoma! so was unavailable. Borgnine was offered the role after a female guest at a Hollywood reception quite disinterestedly remarked to Hecht that, ugly as he was, Borgnine possessed an oddly tender quality which made her yearn to mother him. "That," Hecht said later,...
With his coarsely podgy features, bug eyes, gap-toothed grin and stocky build, Ernest Borgnine, who has died aged 95 of renal failure, seemed destined to remain one of nature's supporting actors in a string of sadistic and menacing parts. Instead he won an Oscar for a role which was the antithesis of all his previous characters.
In 1955, the producer Harold Hecht wanted to transfer Paddy Chayefsky's teleplay Marty to the big screen, with Rod Steiger in the title role, which he had created. But Steiger was filming Oklahoma! so was unavailable. Borgnine was offered the role after a female guest at a Hollywood reception quite disinterestedly remarked to Hecht that, ugly as he was, Borgnine possessed an oddly tender quality which made her yearn to mother him. "That," Hecht said later,...
- 7/9/2012
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Ernest Borgnine, the Oscar-winner who defined a certain type of well-meaning middle-class guy with 1955's Marty, died yesterday at the age of 95. He acted in over 200 movies, starting with 1951's China Corsair, in which he improbably played the Chinese owner of a gambling club. But his movie career only started after 10 years in the Navy, an experience he credited in this fantastic interview with the Av Club with helping prepare him for the movie industry: " That.s what makes a good football team, too. The idea of pulling all together, and off you go. It.s the same way with motion pictures, in my estimation." There are hundreds of excellent remembrances of Borgnine on the web today, and practically all of them focus on a different role he played, because there's so many to choose from-- the taxi driver in Escape From New York? The main character on the TV...
- 7/9/2012
- cinemablend.com
Ernest Borgnine has died at the age of 95. We look back over his career in clips
Borgnine's first screen credit was, somewhat improbably, as a Chinese gambling-den operator called Hu Chang in a studio thriller called China Corsair. After more bit parts as racketeers, heavies and gun-toting villains, Borgnine put himself on the map with the memorably-named nasty Fatso Judson in From Here to Eternity. The aggressive, loutish Judson, quick with a switchblade, is the guard sergeant in the stockade, where he eventually does for the mercurial Angelo Maggio (played by Frank Sinatra).
Borgnine progressed to a string of more visible henchman roles – in Johnny Guitar, Vera Cruz, The Bounty Hunter – but probably his best from this period is another fight-picking bruiser from Bad Day at Black Rock – "I'm half horse, half alligator. You mess with me and I'll kick a lung outta' ya'."
Bad Day at Black Rock was...
Borgnine's first screen credit was, somewhat improbably, as a Chinese gambling-den operator called Hu Chang in a studio thriller called China Corsair. After more bit parts as racketeers, heavies and gun-toting villains, Borgnine put himself on the map with the memorably-named nasty Fatso Judson in From Here to Eternity. The aggressive, loutish Judson, quick with a switchblade, is the guard sergeant in the stockade, where he eventually does for the mercurial Angelo Maggio (played by Frank Sinatra).
Borgnine progressed to a string of more visible henchman roles – in Johnny Guitar, Vera Cruz, The Bounty Hunter – but probably his best from this period is another fight-picking bruiser from Bad Day at Black Rock – "I'm half horse, half alligator. You mess with me and I'll kick a lung outta' ya'."
Bad Day at Black Rock was...
- 7/9/2012
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Ernest Borgnine, the Hollywood star whose career spanned an incredible seven decades, has died in Los Angeles aged 95.Born in Connecticut in 1917 to Italian parents, Ermes Efron Bornino spent some of his childhood in Milan, before the family returned to the States in 1924. He enlisted in the Us Navy in 1935 and served aboard destroyers during the Second World War. His experiences during his ten-year naval career would feed into one of his early successes: the role of Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale in ABC's 1960s sitcom McHale's Navy. It had begun life in pilot-form as a drama, but Borgnine took its Phil Silvers-inspired switch to comedy in his stride.After the navy, concluding that dead-end jobs weren't for him, Borgnine decided to give acting a try, making his Broadway debut in 1945. His first film role was in 1951 in China Corsair, and he quickly built a career playing tough guys and heavies,...
- 7/9/2012
- EmpireOnline
Chicago – HollywoodChicago.com’s ace photographer, Joe Arce, recently photographed the Academy Award winning actor Ernest Borgnine at a book signing event in Chicago. The 92 year-old survivor was in excellent spirits, telling many rich anecdotes to the gathered crowd.
As a kid, I first came upon Ernie as the rascally Lt. Commander Quinton McHale in “McHale’s Navy” (1962-66), heavy in afternoon reruns at the time. I was surprised to see him re-appear in the cult disaster film “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972) as the loud and abrasive Mike Rogo, the cop that never believed Gene Hackman’s preacher-to-the-promised-land of rescue.
92 year-old Oscar winning actor Ernest Borgnine flashes his famous smile for the HollywoodChicago.com lens at the signing of his book ‘Ernie: The Autobiography’ on July 20, 2009 at Borders North Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com
But Borgnine was much more than those two famous roles,...
As a kid, I first came upon Ernie as the rascally Lt. Commander Quinton McHale in “McHale’s Navy” (1962-66), heavy in afternoon reruns at the time. I was surprised to see him re-appear in the cult disaster film “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972) as the loud and abrasive Mike Rogo, the cop that never believed Gene Hackman’s preacher-to-the-promised-land of rescue.
92 year-old Oscar winning actor Ernest Borgnine flashes his famous smile for the HollywoodChicago.com lens at the signing of his book ‘Ernie: The Autobiography’ on July 20, 2009 at Borders North Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com
But Borgnine was much more than those two famous roles,...
- 7/28/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
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