Hollywood veteran Ernest Borgnine dies

File photo. Source: wikimedia

LOS ANGELES: -- Ernest Borgnine, the Oscar-winning actor whose parts ranged from ominous heavies and humble everymen to the buffoonish skipper of a PT boat in the television series "McHale's Navy," has died. He was 95.

Borgnine spokesman Harry Flynn told the Associated Press the actor died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Flynn said kidney failure was the cause of death.

The burly, gap-toothed actor outlasted most leading men of his generation. He appeared in more than 110 films in his five- decade career, including "From Here to Eternity," "The Dirty Dozen," "Marty," and "The Poseidon Adventure," and by his count died onscreen almost 30 times.

"I've been shot, stabbed, kicked, punched through barroom doors by Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper, pushed in front of moving subway trains, devoured by rats and a giant mutated fish, blown up in spaceships, melted down into a Technicolor puddle, jumped into a snake pit, and I perished from thirst in the Sahara Desert," he wrote in his 2008 memoir.

His role as a socially inept New York City butcher who courts a spinster schoolteacher in "Marty" (1955) earned him the Academy Award for best actor. The movie also won Oscars for best picture, best screenplay (for Paddy Chayefsky) and best directing (for Delbert Mann). New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther praised Borgnine's performance as "a beautiful blend of the crude and the strangely gentle and sensitive in a monosyllabic man."

PT Boat Crew

"McHale's Navy" made Borgnine a household name. He played Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale, leader of a fun-loving, troublemaking PT boat crew during World War II.

"It's much better to be a character actor and be working forever than it is to be a lead man and say, 'My, the girls all love me,"' Borgnine said in a 2006 interview as part of the British Film Institute's tribute to the U.S. actor.

Full story: http://www.smh.com.a...0709-21q41.html

-- The Sydney Morning Herald 2012-07-09

A Hollywood staple is gone. RIP.

He was good in just about any acting role. He had a small role in The Dirty Dozen. It's one of my favorites.

RIP.

I adored Mr. Borgnine when he was in tv-show 'Airwolf', I rarely missed an episode, and it was Mr.Borgnine's charming and down-to-earth portrayal of his character that was the show's main draw.

Not just a Hollywood Veteran - he was a gunners mate in the US Navy before and during WWII. RIP guns

Seeing him in interviews he did seem to be a salt of the earth, good guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Borgnine

He will be missed.

A great actor is gone.

RIP Mr. Borgnine

Very long life but not easily forgotten...

Even my little boy knew Ernest from Spongebob squarepants voice of Mermaid man and Barnacle boy-Tim Conway his life long pal.

In an interview a few years ago he attributed his longevity to 'masturbating a lot'.

Living to be 95 years old? Having 5 wives? There's hope for us oldies yet...

I liked him in From Here to Eternity, although he played a bad guy. McHale's Navy was good fun.

Bad day at Black Rock, The Vikings, Ice Station Zebra are more of his movies that leap to my mind.