Charles Durning, king of character actors, is dead at 89
By BOB THOMAS Associated Press December 25, 2012 9:30AM
FILE - In this Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008, file photo from Los Angeles, actor Charles Durning accepts the life achievement award at the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Durning, the two-time Oscar nominee who was dubbed the king of the character actors for his skill in playing everything from a Nazi colonel to the pope, died Monday, Dec. 24, 2012, at his home in New York City. He was 89. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
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Updated: January 27, 2013 6:25AM
LOS ANGELES — Charles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge. His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel to the pope to Dustin Hoffman’s would-be suitor in “Tootsie.”
He told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had no plans to stop working. “They’re going to carry me out, if I go,” he said. Mr. Durning’s longtime agent and friend, Judith Moss, told The Associated Press that he died of natural causes in his home in Manhattan. “He loved that holiday and played Santa Claus many times in films and TV shows,” Gregory said. “Charlie lived the spirit of Christmas each and every day of his life. He taught me to believe that nothing was impossible. He brought joy and a smile to everyone’s life.” Many critics marveled that such a heavyset man could be so nimble in the film’s show-stopping song-and-dance number, not realizing Mr. Durning had been a dance instructor early in his career. The year after “Best Little Whorehouse,” Mr. Durning received another Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks’ “To Be or Not to Be.” He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in 1975’s “Dog Day Afternoon.” He won a Golden Globe as best supporting TV actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald in the TV film “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” and a Tony in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Durning had begun his career on stage, getting his first big break when theatrical producer Joseph Papp hired him for the New York Shakespeare Festival. He went on to work regularly, if fairly anonymously, through the 1960s until his breakout role as a small town mayor in the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play “That Championship Season” in 1972. He quickly made an impression on movie audiences the following year as the crooked cop stalking con men Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the Oscar-winning comedy “The Sting.”
“I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director,” Mr. Durning told The Associated Press in 2008, when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Other films included “The Front Page,” “Sharky’s Machine,” “The Hindenburg,” “Breakheart Pass,” “North Dallas Forty,” “Starting Over,” “Tough Guys,” “Home for the Holidays,” “Spy Hard” and “O Brother Where Art Thou?”
AP
