LOS ANGELES – US actor Ernest Borgnine, whose barrel chest and bulldog looks made him a natural for tough-guy roles in films such as From Here to Eternity – and who won an Oscar for playing a sensitive loner in Marty – died on Sunday at age 95, his publicist said yesterday.
The real-life navy veteran, who became a household name during the 1960s by starring as the maverick commander of a second World War patrol boat in popular television comedy McHale’s Navy, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Borgnine, who continued to work until very recently, had been the oldest living recipient of an Academy Award for best actor.
With his burly profile, gruff voice and gap-toothed leer, Borgnine was on the verge of being typecast as the bad guy early in his career. He broke free from that rut and won the Oscar with a rare leading-man role in Marty in 1955, playing a warm-hearted New York butcher who lamented: “One fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain’t got it.” – (Reuters)