I couldn't respond to yours, Michigan j. frog....so
.....here it is:
From Here to Eternity
Bad Day at Black Rock
Marty (Best Actor Oscar)
The Catered Affair
McHale's Navy(TV sitcom star -- and THEN went back to big movies)
Flight of the Phoenix
The Dirty Dozen
Ice Station Zebra (Plays Russian -- good or bad?)
The Wild Bunch(His greatest film)
Willard ("Look at all the rats!")
The Poseidon Adventure
Escape from New York
Red(at 90-something)
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Damn. I was GOING to add Emperor of the North. I did this from memory. That should go on a list of his best.
With re: The Wild Bunch, I've always felt that he somehow mixed the villainy of Fatso Judson (From Here to Eternity) with the humanity of Marty(in his "love" for William Holden and his sacrifice for Angel.)
Borgnine had an amazing career. The same year he's the henchman getting beaten up by Spencer Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock...Ernie BEATS Spencer Tracy for the Best Actor award for Marty. Then he gets a few years of movie stardom(The Vikings, Torpedo Run) and THEN he takes a TV series that becomes pretty damn famous(McHale's Navy) and spawns two cheapjack theatrical movies of its own.
Then, AFTER the TV show gets cancelled, Borgnine suddenly ignites a movie career all over again, in lots of hits, and usually with his name above the title(as in Ice Station Zebra.)
Ernie had a quite a run in the 60s/70s cusp: The Dirty Dozen, Ice Station Zebra, THE WILD BUNCH, Willard(a sleeper hit that Ernie got a percentage on), The Poseidon Adventure, Emperor of the North. In there, he also managed to make a mediocre Western with Bill Holden(again) called The Revengers, and to play one of three mangy outlaws who rape Raquel Welch and pay the price in Hannie Calder. (The other two outlaws were Jack Elam and Strother Martin, I think.)
Borgnine kept working for decades after that peak(Airwolf, TV sitcoms, anything) and managed to keep acting into his NINETIES(Red.) Which was particularly impressive given his lifelong weight issues -- thinner guys like Bill Holden, Lee Marvin, Bogart and Tracy died a lot younger. (Borgnine gives heavy men hope for their 90s.)
Ernest Borgnine. All purpose character star, movies, TV, you name it. Villains, heroes, you name it. Comedy, drama, you name it.
And sometimes a bit handsome, too. Like in his "Wild Bunch" close-ups. Middle age does that for a man.
PS. With all of that praise, I do have to say that I'm on record as liking some other actors more -- Bill Holden and Lee Marvin, for two; Richard Boone for another. All three of those men died at age 63; their pal Borgnine outlived them by 30 years, I think.
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All 3 of those are great actors. Richard Boone I only know from Have Gun Will Travel. If he had any big movie roles, I’m not aware of them.
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Richard Boone was indeed most famous for TV's Have Gun Will Travel, but got to be a movie star for about ten years after that show went off the air, and then mixed movie support roles with more TV(Hec Ramsey) until his death at 63(same age that Holden and Marvin died) in 1981.
Boone rarely got the lead in a major movie, but I'd say it happened twice: the Western Rio Conchos in 1964, and John Huston's very grim, R-rated starry spy drama The Kremlin Letter in 1970.
I'd say that Boone's must famous role in movies is as the outlaw versus Paul Newman and a group of stagecoach travelers in "Hombre" (1967.) Boone is third billed, over the title , after Newman and Fredric March.
The handsome Bill Holden moved up from ingénue to leading man, one of the biggest of the fifties. Lee Marvin toiled as a supporting character guy(he's Borgnine's co-henchman in Bad Day at Black Rock) for over a decade before his hair prematurely grayed him into one cool, manly cat and an Oscar for Cat Ballou made him a big star.
But Richard Boone didn't hit either of those heights. He would never be a leading man cutie like Bill Holden; his craggy looks and ever-increasing weight weren't good enough for him to become another Lee Marvin. He was, simply...Richard Boone. An incredibly charismatic movie actor with a great voice(and a great rhythmic cadence to that voice), a fluid way with hand gestures and pointing fingers, and the ability to play good guys with a bad streak and bad guys with a good streak.
I sort of took Richard Boone on as a "project" around these boards. I have posts on him on the boards for The Kremlin Letter, Hombre, and Rio Conchos, if you've a mind to read more about him.
Noteable role that Boone did NOT take: the villain Doyle Lonnigan in The Sting. They kept beefing up the role in the script to attract Boone, but he said no. So Robert Shaw got it. And because the producers of The Sting(Richard Zanuck and David Brown) were also the producers of Jaws...Shaw got Quint in Jaws after Lee Marvin turned the role down and Sterling Hayden reluctantly could not take the role(tax problems kept him in France.)
So Richard Boone was indirectly responsible for Robert Shaw playing his most famous role(Quint) and directly responsible for Shaw being in The Sting.
Richard Boone, a Hawaii resident for many years, also turned down the lead in Hawaii 5-0! D'oh! That was a ten-year hit!
But...this is a thread about Ernest Borgnine. I can't say that I enjoyed Borgnine on the screen as much as Boone -- they had different personalities, voices and builds -- but Borgnine clearly pushed himself to a level of stardom much higher than his looks would have suggested. He kept getting himself cast in good movies, is part of it, and we came to really like him on screen. He played fewer bad guys as he aged, too. Got more likeable.
And this: Holden, Marvin, and Borgnine all won Best Actor Oscars. Richard Boone did not.
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Thank you for reading!
I checked, and stuff that I wrote on Richard Boone's board was back on the old imdb board...which has been wiped clean for the "new" moviechat boards. My remarks on Richard Boone ON HIS BOARD..are gone. Evidently only the discussions about MOVIES made it intact from imdb to moviechat. Actors' boards needed to be started all over again.
Which you have done well for Mr. Borgnine.
I'm certain Ernie said he was offered a small sum for Willard or bigger paycheck, he of course asked for bigger paycheck and was gutted when the movie did better than expected. Same thing happened with Steve McQueen on The Blob, even worse because he was just an unknown struggling actor at the time, an although Wanted: Dead Or Alive came soon, he never knew it at the time.
shareI'm certain Ernie said he was offered a small sum for Willard or bigger paycheck, he of course asked for bigger paycheck and was gutted when the movie did better than expected. Same thing happened with Steve McQueen on The Blob, even worse because he was just an unknown struggling actor at the time, an although Wanted: Dead Or Alive came soon, he never knew it at the time
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One of the most famous "d'oh" choices of fast cash over a percentage was to Donald Suthernland for his few scenes in Animal House as the pothead professor. The movie needed a "name" (John Belushi was too "new") and Sutherland provided a direct connection to an earlier "guys in groups" comedy -- MASH of 1970.
But alas for Sutherland, he took the cash payout up front, skipped the percentage -- and missed out on a few millions.
Now I'm not so sure which way Borgnine got paid for Willard....I THOUGHT he got a percentage, but I can't prove it. So.."withdrawn"
Also in Merlin's Mystical Shop of Wonders which was a feature of MST3k
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