![]() John Cazale as Pacino’s confused accomplice and Chris Sarandon as his lover were also singled out by critics but it was Durning who was the surprise winner of the National Board of Review award for the year’s Best Supporting Actor. ![]() ![]() Al Pacino had one of his best roles as the man who robs a bank in order to get money for his lover’s sex-change operation. Two years later he had an even better role as the police hostage negotiator in Lumet’s acclaimed film based on a real-life incident. ESSENTIAL FILMS DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975), directed by Sidney Lumetĭurning was 50 when George Roy Hill gave him the role in which film audiences first noticed him as the police lieutenant in the Paul Newman-Robert Redford starrer The Sting. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He received a career achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2008.Ĭharles Durning died of natural causes on December 24, 2012, still in high demand with roles in two films this year and one in the can for release next year. His last Broadway role was as former President Hockstader in the 2000 revival of The Best Man. He won a Tony for his portrayal of Big Daddy in the 1990 Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He won a Golden Globe for The Kennedys of Massachusetts. Much on TV, he was nominated nine times for Emmys for Queen of the Stardust Ballroom Captains and the Kings Attica Death of a Salesman Evening Shade (twice) Homicide: Life in the Streets NCIS (as Mark Harmon’s father) and Rescue Me (as Denis Leary’s father). Other film appearances of note include 1979’s North Dallas Forty 1981’s True Confessions 1984’s Mass Appeal 1995’s Home for the Holidays and 2000’s State and Main and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. He received his second Oscar nomination for the following year’s To Be or Not to Be. His portrayal of the police negotiator in 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon earned him a Golden Globe nomination and his 1982 portrayal of the light-footed Governor in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas earned him the first of two Oscar nominations, while his portrayal of Jessica Lange’s father in the same year’s Tootsie won him a legion of new fans. In fact, Durning was in such demand during the next thirty-nine years that he hardly had any time off, playing everything from a Nazi colonel to Pope John XXIII and Santa Claus. He continued to work steadily in TV, stage and film but did not attract much noticed in the media until his acclaimed performance in the 1972 Broadway play That Championship Season, which led to his being cast in the 1973 film The Sting where he finally gained the attention of the general public at the age of 50 as the police lieutenant. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 in several minor roles in Poor Blios. He first appeared on TV in a minor role in live play in 1953, but did not make another appearance until 1962, again in a minor role. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts among other medals.ĭurning’s journey to gain recognition as actor was a long one. He was one of twenty soldiers who escaped and later returned to help identify the victims. ![]() As the war drew to a close, he was one of approximately one hundred POWs rounded up and shot by the Nazis. He was declared fit to return to service on Decemand arrived at the front in time to participate in the Battle of the Bulge where he was captured by the Germans. He was the only member of his battalion to survive although he was severely wounded in the left and right thighs, right hand, frontal region of the head and interior left chest wall. His first show business job was as an usher and later comedian at a burlesque house in Buffalo, New York.ĭrafted into the Army during World War II, Durning was one of the first troops to land at Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. He took numerous jobs to support himself including becoming a professional boxer and later a trained dance instructor. Because his father was unable to work, his mother supported the family as a laundress at West Point.ĭurning left home at 16. Five of his six sisters died of scarlet fever and smallpox. His father, a wounded World War I veteran died when he was twelve. Born Februin Highland Falls, New York to Louise (née Leonard) and James Durning, Charles Durning was the fourth eldest of ten children, only five of whom survived into adulthood. ![]()
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