|
|
Daily News
|
|
Rod Steiger Dead at 77
Oscar-winning actor succumbs to pneumonia and kidney failure in L.A.
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
By Spencer Garvey
|
|
LOS ANGELES (FilmStew.com) - Oscar-winning actor Rod Steiger, who took home an Academy Award for playing a Southern police chief in In the Heat of the Night, died yesterday at a Los Angeles hospital. The actor, who succumbed to pneumonia and kidney failure, was 77 years old. Throughout his lengthy carreer, Steiger became known as a character actor who liked to challenge himself by taking on the roles of real-life people. During his acting years, he portrayed the likes of Mussolini, Napolean and W.C. Fields, among others. But Stieger may be best remembered for playing Marlon Brando's mob-connected brother in On the Waterfront.Rod Steiger was born on April 14, 1925, in Westhampton, New York, to dance-team parents. Shortly after his birth, his parents split up, and Steiger left home at 15 citing alcohol as the destroyer of his family. Lying about his age, Steiger joined the Navy and headed to the South Pacific.Upon his return from war, Steiger joined a group of co-workers in an acting troupe leading him to study at the New School for Social Research on the G.I. Bill. He was soon accepted into the Actors Studio and studied under the leadership of Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. Between 1947 and 1953, Steiger worked on television appearing in over 250 dramas. He made his feature debut in 1951 with a small role in Fred Zinnemann's Teresa. After that, Kazan chose him for the role of Brando's brother in Waterfront, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination for his supporting role. He went on to star in the feature version of Oklahoma! and 1965's The Pawnbroker, the role he claimed the be the most proud of, and the one that earned him his second Oscar nomination.When he made Heat of the Night two years later, Stegier beat out such greats as Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Paul Newman and Spencer Tracy to take home his first and only Oscar.Steiger, who was married and divorced four times, was most recently married in 2000 to Joan Benedict. He had a daughter, Anna, with his second wife, Carrie Bloom, and a son, Michael Winston, with his fourth wife, Paula Ellis, in 1993.
|
|
|
|
|
 Email
|
 Print
|
|
|
|
|
|