Ernest Borgnine to have night of a lifetime

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Ernest Borgnine was in his Hollywood Hills home recently, recalling a call from Screen Actors Guild President Ken Howard, who told him that he would receive the group’s lifetime achievement award, to be presented Sunday at the SAG Awards (7 p.m. on TBS and TNT).

“And I said, ‘But am I worth it? Really. It comes down to that. What have I done, really? But, hey! I’m not going to turn it down.’”

Then he laughed.

Borgnine, 94, was career military, well on his way to a Navy pension when he came home after World War II.

His mother suggested that he go into acting. “She said, ‘You always like getting in front of people and making a fool of yourself. Why don’t you give it a try?’ And 10 years later, I had Grace Kelly handing me an Academy Award [for 1955’s ‘Marty’].”

Borgnine laughs, as if still in disbelief, after all these years.

AP