Charles Durning

At 89 years old, Charles Durning has this physical status:

Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923-2012) was an American actor with appearances in over 200 films, television shows, and plays.

Durning's best-known films include The Sting (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), True Confessions (1981), Tootsie (1990), Where Art Thou? (2000).

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for both The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and To Be or Not to Be (1983).

Durning served in World War II and was honoured for vain combat service prior to his acting career.

Early life

Durning was born in Highland Falls, New York. He was the son of Louise Leonard, 1894-1992, a West Point laundress, and James E. Durning (1883-1935). Durning's parents were of German, Irish, and English descent. Durning was the ninth of ten children. James (known as Roger, 1915–2000), Clifford (1916–2006), and Gerald (1926–2006), all surviving, but five sisters died from scarlet fever and smallpox as children.

Personal life

In 1959, Durning married Carole Doughty, his first wife. They had three children together before divorcing in 1972. In 1974, Durning married Mary Ann Amelio, his second wife. The two parties declared their official Declaration of Separation in 2010.

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Acting career

Durning, a professional ballroom dancer, studied at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in New York City when pursuing an acting career.

Durning began his career in 1951. He was hired to replace a drunken actor on stage while serving as an usher in a burlesque theatre. He appeared in roughly 50 stock company productions and in several off-Broadway plays, eventually attracting the attention of Joseph Papp, the producer of The Public Theater and the New York Shakespeare Festival. He appeared in 35 plays as part of the Shakespeare Festival, beginning in 1961. Durning wrote in Pittsburgh's Post Gazette in 2001, "that moment in my life was my best time." "I had no money at all," says Joseph Papp, who didn't pay much." In addition to a rehearsal wage, you were getting a pay raise. For the summer, we will perform three plays in Central Park. And then you'd do three to six plays on Lafayette Street every year – including new writers Sam Shepard, David Rabe, John Ford Noonan, Jason Miller.

He segued into television and movies during this period. He made his film debut in 1965 in Harvey Middleman, Fireman. Hi, Mom! Gregory Peck appeared in John Frankenheimer's I Walk the Line (1970) starring Gregory Peck (1970) and three Brian De Palma films: Hi, Mom! (1970s, as Charles Durnham), Sisters (1973), and The Fury (1978). He appeared in Dealing: or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bog Blues (1972) with Barbara Hershey and John Lithgow.

Drat! was one of Durning's most popular Broadway shows.

The Cat!

Pousse-Café (1965), The Happy Time (1968), Indians (1972), That Championship Season (1972), Knock Knock (1977), The Raven (1990), The Good Man (1995), The Best Man (2000).

He appeared in Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui with Al Pacino, produced by Tony Randall in 2002. In Wendy Wasserstein's last play, Third (2005), he played Jack Jameson, with Dianne Wiest at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre.

Durning was a winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for his outstanding appearance in David Rabe's Streamers' 1977 production. He received critical acclaim for his role as Norman Thayer, Jr. in Los Angeles' On Golden Pond opposite Julie Harris in 1980.

In 1972, George Roy Hill, a film director who was captivated by Durning's appearance in the Tony Award-winning play That Championship Season, and Pulitzer Prize-winning play That Championship Season, offered him a part in The Sting (1973). Durning received the award for best picture-winner, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, as a crooked cop, Lt. Wm. Snyder, a professional con artist who works with and hustles, is a professional con artist. Johnny Hooker, the young griifter (Redford), is flocked to become the griftee in the end, but he perseveres. Other film credits include Dog Day Afternoon with Al Pacino; When A Stranger Calls; The Final Countdown; The Hindenburg's Last Gleaming with Burt Lancaster; and True Confessions with Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall. Some television credits include The Connection; the made-for-television musical in which Durning played the mailman on the dance floor in Maun Stapleton's lonely widow; The Magic of the Weeping Bear; PBS' The King of the Stardust Ballroom, a made-for-television musical in which he played the mailman in which Durning played John XXIII; and PBS' The Best Little Girl in the World with Jennifer Jason Leigh; In 1976, he received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe award for his role in the television mini-series Captains and the Kings.

He appeared in Doc Hopper, a man who owns a frog leg restaurant and the main antagonist in The Muppet Movie in 1979. He appeared in Tootsie as a suitor to Dustin Hoffman's cross-dressing lead character. The two actors appeared in Death of a Salesman, a 1985 TV movie.

He appeared in Shania Twain's "Dance With the One That Brought You" in 1993.

Henry Larson, the benevolent father of Holly Hunter's character in Home for the Holidays (1995) and Waring Hudsucker Proxy (1994), were among his film roles. Where Art Thou? he appeared in the Coen Brothers' "Pappy" O'Daniel, a cynical governor of Mississippi (which was loosely based on Texas politician and showman W. Lee O'Daniel). (2000)

Durning appeared in Burt Reynolds's television series Evening Shade (1990-1994) as the town doctor Harlan Eldridge (1979–1994), 1982's Start Over, 1984's Little Whorehouse in Texas, 1985's Hostage Hotel, and 1999's Hostage Hotel.

Durning appeared on television as Father Hubley, the Barone family's long-suffering parish priest. In the animated film Family Guy, he also played the voice of recurring character Francis Griffin, Peter's religious zealot father. He appeared on FX television series Rescue Me, as Mike Gavin, Denis Leary's former firefighter father.

In 2005, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a Marine soldier in "Call of Silence," an episode of NCIS broadcasting on November 23, 2004. Durning's character appears to police, arguing that he must be convicted of murdering his brother during a ferocious war on Iwo Jima six decades ago. The full truth of the incident only becomes apparent when the guilt-stricken veteran goes through a cathartic reliving of the battlefield events.

He received nine Emmy Award nominations for his various television appearances. He has received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nominations for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1982 and 1983, and To Be or Not to Be. He was awarded a Golden Globe in 1990 for his support work in the television miniseries The Kennedys of Massachusetts, despite having three previous nominations. He received a Tony Award in 2008 for his work as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In That Championship Season and Third, he received two Drama Desk Awards for his performances.

Durning was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame on Broadway in 1999. On January 27, 2008, he was awarded the Life Achievement Award at the 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Dinner. On July 31, 2008, he was granted a Hollywood Walk of Fame adjacent to one of his idols, James Cagney.

"There are several things in us, in the deeps of our souls, that we don't want anyone to know about," he told Parade. "We're terrified and repulsive in our house, the scary place we don't talk about." That place that no one knows about — frightening things we keep private. A lot of that is a result of acting."

The Academy Film Archive holds the Charles Durning Collection. His collection includes mainly of films he adored as well as a small collection of family home movies, as well as films in which he appeared.

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