• 114- Ernest Borgnine Dies.
(born Ermes Effron Borgnino;
January 24, 1917-July 8, 2012) is
an American film and television
actor whose career spanned more
than six decades. He was an
unconventional lead in many films
of the 1950s, winning an Oscar in
1955 for "Marty."
••
On
television, he played Quinton
McHale in the 1962-1966 series
McHale's Navy and
co-starred in the mid-1980s
action series Airwolf, in
addition to a wide variety of
other roles. Borgnine was also
known for his role as Mermaid Man
in the animated television series
SpongeBob SquarePants. Borgnine
earned an Emmy Award nomination
at age 92 for his work on the
series.
•
Early life
Borgnine was born Ermes Effron
Borgnino in -- 1917
in Hamden, Connecticut. He was
the son of Anna (née
Boselli), who emigrated to the
United States from Carpi (Modena,
Italy), and Camillo Borgnino, who
emigrated to the U.S. from
Ottiglio (Alessandria,
Italy).
• Borgnine's parents
separated when he was two years
old, and he and his mother went
to live in Italy. By 1923, his
parents had reconciled, and the
family name was changed from
Borgnino to Borgnine. The family
settled in North Haven,
Connecticut, where he attended
public schools. Borgnine was an
only child who took to sports
while growing up, but showed no
interest in acting.
•
Naval service •••Borgnine
joined the United States Navy in
1935, after graduation from James
Hillhouse High School in New
Haven, Connecticut. He was
discharged in 1941, re-enlisted
after Pearl Harbor, and served
until 1945 (a total of ten
years), reaching the rank of
gunner's mate 1st class. He
served aboard the destroyer
USS Lamberton. His military
decorations include the Navy Good
Conduct Medal, American Defense
Service Medal with Fleet Clasp,
American Campaign Medal,
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
and the World War II Victory
Medal.
•••
In 1956,
Borgnine said of his Navy service
"I wouldn't trade it for
anything. The Navy molded me into
a man, and I made a lot of
friends
too." •••Borgnine
received the honorary rating of
chief petty officer in October
2004 from Master Chief Petty
Officer of the Navy Terry D.
Scott for Borgnine's support of
the Navy and naval families
worldwide.
•
Acting career •••After
the war was over, he returned to
his parents' home with no job and
no direction. In a British Film
Institute interview about his
life and career, Borgnine
said: •••After
World War II we wanted no more
part in war. I didn't even want
to be a boy-scout. I went home
and said that I was through with
the Navy and so now, what do we
do? So I went home to mother, and
after a few weeks of patting on
the back and, 'You did good,' and
everything else, one day she
said, 'Well?' like mothers do.
Which meant, 'Alright, you gonna
get a job or
what?' •••Since
he was not willing to settle for
a dead-end factory job, his
mother encouraged him to pursue a
more glamorous profession and
suggested that his personality
would be well suited for the
stage. He surprised his mother by
taking the suggestion to heart,
although his father was far from
enthusiastic. In 2011, Borgnine
remembered,she
said, `You always like getting in
front of people and making a fool
of yourself, why don't you give
it a try?' I was sitting at the
kitchen table and I saw this
light. No kidding. It sounds
crazy. And 10 years later, I had
Grace Kelly handing me an Academy
Award.
•Stage •••After
graduation, he auditioned and was
accepted to the Barter Theatre in
Abingdon, Virginia, so-called for
its audiences bartering their
produce for admission during the
Great Depression. In 1947, he
landed his first stage role in
State of the Union. Although it
was a short role, he won over the
audience. His next role was as
the Gentleman Caller in Tennessee
Williams' The Glass Menagerie. In
1949, he had his Broadway debut
in the role of a nurse in the
play Harvey. More roles on stage
led him to being a decades-long
character actor. (Continue)
CONTINUED
• •
Films In
1951, he moved to Los Angeles,
California, where
he eventually received his big break in
From Here to Eternity (1953), playing the
sadistic Sergeant "Fatso" Judson, who
beats a stockade prisoner in his charge,
Angelo Maggio (played by Frank Sinatra).
Borgnine built a reputation as a
dependable character actor and appeared in
early film roles as villains, including
movies like Johnny Guitar, Vera Cruz and
Bad Day at Black Rock. But in 1955, the
actor starred as a warm-hearted butcher in
Marty, the film version of the television
play of the same name, which gained him an
Academy Award for Best Actor over Frank
Sinatra, James Dean (who had died by the
time of the ceremony), and former best
actor winners Spencer Tracy and James
Cagney. •••Borgnine's
film career continued successfully through
the 1960s, 1970s and the 1980s, including
Emperor of the North, The Vikings, The
Flight of the Phoenix, The Dirty Dozen,
Ice Station Zebra, The Poseidon Adventure,
The Black Hole and Escape from New York.
One of his most famous roles became that
of Dutch, a member of The Wild Bunch in
the 1969 Western classic from director Sam
Peckinpah. •••Of
his role in The Wild Bunch, he later said,
"I did [think it was a moral
film]. Because to me, every picture
should have some kind of a moral to it. I
feel that when we used to watch old
pictures, as we still do I'm sure, the bad
guys always got it in the end and the good
guys always won out. Today it's a little
different. Today it seems that the bad
guys are getting the good end of it. There
was always a moral in our story." •
Television Borgnine
made his TV debut as a character actor in
Captain Video and His Video Rangers,
beginning in 1951. These two episodes led
to countless other television roles that
Borgnine would gain in Goodyear Television
Playhouse, Short Short Dramas, The Ford
Television Theatre, Waterfront, The Lone
Wolf, Fireside Theatre, The O. Henry
Playhouse, Frontier Justice, Laramie, The
Blue Angels, Bob Hope Presents the
Chrysler Theatre, Run for Your Life,
Little House on the Prairie's two-part
episode - "The Lord is My Shepherd," The
Love Boat, Magnum, P.I., Highway to Heaven
with old friend Michael Landon, Murder,
She Wrote, Walker, Texas Ranger, Touched
by an Angel and the final episodes of ER,
among many others. In 2009, at the age of 92, Borgnine
earned an Emmy nomination for his
performances in the final two episodes of
the long-running NBC medical series
ER.
McHale's
Navy In 1962,
Borgnine joined the ranks of other sitcom
stars such as John Forsythe, Andy
Griffith, Danny Thomas, Alan Young, Robert
Young, Fred MacMurray and Buddy Ebsen.
That same year he signed a contract with
Universal Studios for the lead role as the
gruff but lovable skipper Lieutenant
Commander Quinton McHale in what began as
a serious one-hour 1962 episode called
Seven Against the Sea for Alcoa Premiere,
and later reworked to a comedy called
McHale's Navy, a World War II sitcom. The
insubordinate crew of PT-73 helped the
show become an overnight success during
its first season, landing in the Top 30 in
1963.
Just like the McHale
character, Borgnine was a longtime navy
man in real life. He thrived on the
adulation from fans for their favorite
navy man, and in 1963 received an Emmy
nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a
Comedy Series. At the end of the fourth
season, in 1966 low ratings and repetitive
story lines brought McHale's Navy to an
end. Borgnine was not happy about the
show's cancellation and was concerned
about what television role he might play
in the future. He also starred in the 1964
film version of the series and later
appeared in a cameo performance in the
1997 remake.
Airwolf Borgnine
returned to a new contract with Universal
Studios in 1983, for a co-starring role
opposite Jan-Michael Vincent, on Airwolf.
After he was approached by producer Donald
P. Bellisario, who had been impressed by
Borgnine's guest role as a wrestler in a
1982 episode of Magnum, P.I., he
immediately agreed. He played Dominic
Santini, a helicopter pilot, in the series
which became an immediate hit. Borgnine's
strong performances belied his exhaustion
due to the grueling production schedule,
and the challenges of working with his
younger, troubled series lead. The show
was cancelled by CBS in 1986.
The Single Guy He auditioned a third
time for a co-starring role opposite
Jonathan Silverman in The Single Guy as
doorman Manny Cordoba, which lasted two
seasons. According to Silverman, Borgnine
would come to work with more energy and
passion than all other stars combined. He
was the first person to arrive on the set
every day and the last to
leave.
Merlin's Shop of Mystical
Wonders In 1996, Borgnine
starred in the televised fantasy/thriller
film Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders
(partially adapted from the 1984 horror
film The Devil's Gift). As narrator and
storyteller, Borgnine recounts a string of
related supernatural tales, his modern-day
fables notably centering around an
enchanted and malicious cymbal-banging
monkey toy stolen from the wizard Merlin.
The film was later featured in the
parodical television series Mystery
Science Theater 3000, and has since gained
a prominent cult following.
• Other
activities Also in 1996,
Borgnine toured the United States on a bus
to meet his fans and see the country. The
trip was the subject of a 1997
documentary, Ernest Borgnine on the Bus.
He also served one year as the Chairman of
the National Salute to Hospitalized
Veterans, visiting patients in many
Department of Veterans Affairs medical
centers.
Borgnine was a
Freemason in Hollywood Lodge No. 355, and
a 33rd° Scottish Rite Mason in the
Southern Masonic Jurisdiction. He was also
a member of the Loyal Order of Moose at
that organization's Lodge in Junction
City, Oregon.
Borgnine had
volunteered to be Stories of Service
National spokesman, urging his fellow
World War II vets to come forward and
share their stories.
• Work after
1999 Starting in
1999, Borgnine provided his voice talent
to the animated sitcom SpongeBob
SquarePants as the elderly superhero
Mermaid Man (where he was paired up with
his McHale's Navy co-star Tim Conway as
the voice of Mermaid Man's sidekick
Barnacle Boy). He expressed affection for
this role, in no small part for its
popularity among children. Borgnine also
appeared as himself in The Simpsons
episode "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood," in
addition to a number of television
commercials. In 2000, he was the executive
producer of Hoover, in which he was the
only credited actor.
In 2007, 90-year-old
Borgnine starred in the Hallmark original
film A Grandpa for Christmas. He played a
man who, after his estranged daughter is
in a car accident, discovers that he has a
granddaughter he never knew about. She is
taken into his care, and they soon become
great friends. Borgnine received a Golden
Globe nomination for Best Actor in a
Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for
Television for his performance. At 90, he
was the oldest Golden Globe nominee
ever.
•••
On April 2, 2009, Borgnine
starred in the last episode of the
long-running medical series ER. His role
was that of a husband whose long marriage
ended with his wife's death. In his final
scene, Borgnine's character is in a
hospital bed lying beside his
just-deceased wife. His performance
garnered an Emmy nomination for
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series,
his third nomination and his first in 29
years (since being nominated for
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited
Series or a Special in 1980 for All Quiet
on the Western
Front).
•••
In 2009, at age 92, he
starred as Frank, the main character of
Another Harvest Moon, directed by Greg
Swartz and also starring Piper Laurie and
Anne Meara. On October 2, 2010, Borgnine
appeared as himself in a sketch on
Saturday Night Live. On October 15, 2010
he appeared in Red, which was filmed
earlier that
year.
•••
In late 2011, Ernest
Borgnine completed what would be his last
film; playing Rex Page in The Man Who
Shook The Hand of Vicente
Fernandez.
•••
In his later years,
Borgnine complained that he didn't get as
many TV and film offers as he once did,
saying "The studios all say to themselves
'Ernest Borgnine? Is he still alive?' I
like working. When I get in front of the
camera, it makes me feel young
again."
•
Autobiography Borgnine's
autobiography Ernie was published
by Citadel Press in July 2008.
Ernie is a loose, conversational
recollection of highlights from his acting
career and notable events from his
personal
life.
•••
In the wake of the book's
publication, he began a small promotional
tour, visiting independent bookstores in
the Los Angeles area to promote the book's
release and meet some of his
fans.
• Personal
life Borgnine
married five times. He was first married
to Rhoda Kemins (1949&endash;1958), whom
he met while serving in the
Navy;[11] They had one daughter,
Nancee (born May 28, 1952). Then he
married actress Katy Jurado
(1959&endash;1963). He once referred to
his second ex-wife as being "Beautiful,
but a tiger."
•••
Borgnine
later married singer Ethel Merman (1964);
the marriage barely lasted a month. Their
divorce was finalized on May 25, 1965. He
then married Donna Rancourt
(1965&endash;1972), with whom he had a
son, Cristopher (born August 9, 1969) and
two daughters, Sharon (born August 5,
1965) and Diana (born December 29, 1970).
His fifth and last marriage was to Tova
Traesnaes (married February 24, 1973).
•••
He
had a sister, Evelyn Velardi (b. 1926).
His mother, Anna Borgnine, died in 1949,
after a long battle against tuberculosis,
just days before his first
wedding.
Part
02/ TIMELINE
-
Life
- ACHIEVEMENTS In 2006,
Borgnine was the target of criticism by
gay rights activists when he expressed his
distaste for the controversial movie
Brokeback Mountain.
•••
On January 24, 2007,
Borgnine celebrated his 90th birthday at a
bistro in West Hollywood, California.
Guests included his wife Tova,
decades-long friend Tim Conway, Dennis
Farina, Army Archerd, Andy Granatelli, Bo
Hopkins, Burt Young, Steven Bauer, his son
Cris Borgnine, grandson Anthony Borgnine,
Connie Stevens, David Gerber, Debbie
Reynolds, Joe Mantegna, Norm Crosby and
many more.
•••
Borgnine was a
member of the Lambda chapter of the Delta
Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
Borgnine as "Grand Clown" in June
1973.
•••
A street was named
in Borgnine's honor in his hometown of
Hamden, Connecticut, where he enjoyed a
large and vocal following. There is also a
Mexican-themed restaurant in New York City
with a shrine dedicated to Borgnine.
•••
For 30 years
(1972-2002), Borgnine marched in
Milwaukee's annual Great Circus Parade as
the "Grand Clown."
•••
In 2000, Borgnine
received his 50-year pin as a Freemason in
Abingdon Lodge No. 48, Abingdon, Virginia.
He joined the Scottish Rite Valley of Los
Angeles in 1964, received the KCCH in
1979, was coroneted a 33° Inspector
General Honorary in 1983, and received the
Grand Cross of the Court of Honour in
1991.
•••
On August 14, 2008,
Borgnine was interviewed on Fox and
Friends when he was asked about the secret
to his longevity. Laughingly, he responded
"I don't dare tell you", but then he leans
over to whisper into the ear of Steve
Doocy, but the whisper is caught by the
microphone, "I masturbate a lot." This
incident was lampooned in the 30 Rock
episode "The Funcooker" which aired in
March the following year, where Tracy
Jordan, who has just been fined by the FCC
for cursing on air, believes his paying
for his transgression gives him increased
license: "I can even say what Ernest
Borgnine whispered to me."
•••
During an interview
in 1998, Borgnine admitted to some
personal feelings about politics:
•••
I'm 81 years old and
I like to speak my mind. As a legacy, on
the day I die, I'd like to have a
newspaper publish all the things that I
find wrong in the United States today. And
my first would be to get rid of the
politicians. We put politicians into
Congress and the Senate for what? For
representation. But who do they represent?
They represent not only their party, but
the people who give them the money, the
lobbyists.
• Death:
Borgnine died of renal failure on July
8, 2012, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in
Los Angeles, California. His wife and
children were at his side. He was 95 years
old.
•
Awards and nominations Borgnine
won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Actor
for his portrayal of Marty Piletti in the
film Marty. Grace Kelly presented the
Oscar.
•••
For his contribution
to the motion picture industry, Ernest
Borgnine has received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6324 Hollywood
Blvd. In 1996, he was inducted into the
Western Performers Hall of Fame at the
National Cowboy & Western Heritage
Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
•••
• He was
honored with the Screen Actors Guild Life
Achievement Award at the 17th annual SAG
Awards, held Jan. 30, 2011.
•••
• Harrison
Carroll Achievement Award Foundation -
1971-72.
•••
• Cinema Prize
Awards Member-Founder -
1971-1972.
ByLines:
Related
Stories
•••
Ernest: "Spencer Tracy was the first actor
I've seen who could just look down into
the dirt and command a scene. He played a
set-up with Robert Ryan that way. He's
looking down at the road and then he looks
at Ryan at just the precise, right minute.
I tell you, Rob could've stood on his head
and zipped open his fly and the scene
would've still been Mr
Tracy's."
•••
• Ernest: "The trick is not to become
somebody else. You become somebody else
when you're in front of a camera or when
you're on stage. There are some people who
carry it all the time. That, to me, is not
acting.
What you've gotta do is find out what the
writer wrote about and put it into your
mind. This is acting. Not going out and
researching what the writer has already
written. This is
crazy!"
•••
• Ernest: "Everything I do has a
moral to it. Yes, I've been in films that
have had shootings. I made The Wild Bunch
(1969), which was the beginning of the
splattering of blood and everything else.
But there was a moral behind it. The moral
was that, by golly, bad guys got it. That
was it. Yeah."
•••
• Ernest: "Ever since they opened the
floodgates with Clark Gable saying,
'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn,'
somebody's ears pricked up and said, 'Oh
boy, here we go!' Writers used to make
such wonderful pictures without all that
swearing, all that cursing. And now it
seems that you can't say three words
without cursing. And I don't think that's
right."
•••
• Ernest on drugs: "No, I've never
done anything. At least, not to my
knowledge. I once took a bunch of
goofballs by accident. They looked like
candy. They were in a little bowl at a
party. I grabbed a handful and went to
town. That was some New Year's Eve. I
didn't have a coherent thought till
February."
•••
• Ernest on his marriage to Ethel
Merman: "Biggest mistake of my life. I
thought I was marrying Rosemary
Clooney."
•••
• Ernest on his $5,000 salary for
playing the eponymous lead in Marty
(1955), which won him a Best Actor Oscar:
"... I would have done it for
nothing."
•••
• Ernest on Women's Rights: "They
tried it the wrong way. You can't expect
anyone to take you seriously if you burn
your undies and tell me I'm a pig. That's
why it failed. Too many ugly broads
telling me that they don't want to sleep
with me. Who wanted you anyway?"
///
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