Rik Saluttes a legend
January 17 2012
In a week, January 24, Ernest Borgnine will turn a new calendar in his life. He was born in 1917 in Hamden, Connecticut. My math puts him at 95 next week, one of the oldest active Hollywood actors, and by all accounts, one of the most admired and well liked.
Borgnine is credited in 125 Hollywood made movies, with perhaps dozens more that he walked on or stood in the background. He had dozens of black and white tv appearances too, between movie jobs. I have been a aficionado of Borgnine since my sister dragged me to see MARTY in a re-release at our neighborhood theatre. The acclaimed romantic drama was centered on the chunky bachelor butcher living with his mother in the Bronx. Unlucky in love in the move (not real life) Marty hooks up with Clara (Betsy Blair) and off they go. The performance by Borginine won him awards and Hollywood’s recognition that catapulted him to a lengthy, charming career.
Borgnine is married to a woman who, I was told, hails from the Moose Lake area. One local Duluth restaurant owner swears that the Borgnines dined heartily more than once at a Duluth bistro and tipped well even as autograph hounds surrounded the couple. A nice touch that confirmed the warmth of the man, and while perhaps dispelling the myth of Hollywood snobbery.
The touching romance of Marty was a bit of a surprise for me years later when I rented the movie FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. It was made two or three years before Marty was released. From Here to Eternity is based in Hawaii just the weeks before the Pearl Harbor bombing. It featured Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Debrah Kerr, Donna Reed, Jack Warden. Plus an up and coming Merle Travis and Claude Akins. Even soon to be Superman George Reeves had a small part. Borgnine played SSgt. James Judson, a vicious psycho Army bully who beat the stuffing out of Frank Sinatra’s Angelo Maggio character just before the bombs Pearl Harbor’s ships. Borgnine said once that he’d known a guy in WWII on which to base that character. The movie launched the career of Borgnine and others, and re-energized the sagging livelihood of Sinatra whose music was fading and proved that he could act with the best. Reportedly, Sinatra begged and begged to get that part.
I guess the total turnaround in character types from the nasty psycho Sergeant, to the lovable Marty, proved to Hollywood moguls that Borgnine was a talented, bankable actor. He’s worked as steady as any man in Hollywood for50 years. He’s a lot like Morgan Freeman who was honored earlier this month during the Golden Globe ceremonies. Morgan seems to be in every other movie shown in the Northland. Both guys have my respect, but Borgnine still has decades on Freemans line of business.
From Westerns to Outer Space, Comedies to Love Stories, Borgnine has packed a lot of great performances in those 95 years. One of the film industries great guys. I wish him 95 more.
