George Kennedy

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Kennedy (1975)

George Harris Kennedy, Jr. (born February 18, 1925 in New York City , New York - † February 28, 2016 in Boise , Idaho ) was an American actor . Kennedy has played more than 200 roles in feature films and television series . For his portrayal of the prisoner Dragline in the prison drama The Unyielding ( Cool Hand Luke , 1967), he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1968 .

life and work

George Kennedy was born into an acting family and made his stage debut when he was two years old. Later he went to the radio. He continued his career as a radio host during World War II and served in the United States Army for 16 years . A back problem caused him to quit his job and he went to Hollywood .

Kennedy first worked as a technician on television series. From 1959 he took on minor television roles, followed by his Hollywood debut in 1961. With his strong figure, the distinctive face and a height of 1.93 m, Kennedy was an unmistakable appearance and became a very busy character actor who primarily gave profile to important supporting roles. In the 1960s, Kennedy was often used in villain roles and played, for example, the one-armed thug Herman Scobie in the comedic thriller Charade (1963) or a killer in The 27th Floor (1965) and the prisoner Dragline in The Unbending . For the latter role, he received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the same category. In his later career, Kennedy played less rogue roles, but shifted more to authority figures.

In the 1960s and 1970s in particular, the actor was seen in numerous film classics and hit movies, for example in Lonely are the brave (1962), Lullaby for a corpse (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967 ), The Last Bite the Dog (1974), Earthquake (1974), or Death on the Nile (1978). Kennedy also achieved great success with his appearances in the four airport disaster films Airport , Giants am Himmel , Verschollen im Bermuda-Dreieck and Airport '80 - Die Concorde between 1970 and 1979, in which he played the role of aircraft specialist Joe Patroni embodied. There are also numerous television appearances in various series. From 1988 to 1991 he played in the television series Dallas to Carter McKay , the biggest rival of the Ewing family.

From the 1980s onwards, he was almost only seen in films in the B or C categories, some of which were not shown in the cinema. Between 1988 and 1994, however, he portrayed the character of the police inspector Captain Ed Hocken in the successful Die-naked cannon trilogy at the side of Leslie Nielsen , with whom his image as a "tough man" was satirized. In 2005 he played the role of director in Don't Come Knocking , directed by Wim Wenders . Kennedy was active as an actor until 2014 and took on a role in the film The Gambler at the age of 90 . George Kennedy, who suffered from heart problems, died ten days after his 91st birthday.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Web links

Commons : George Kennedy  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 'Airport' Star George Kennedy Dies at 91. In: variety.com. Variety , February 29, 2016, accessed March 1, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Kennedy, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kennedy, George Harris Junior (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York , United States
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 2016
Place of death Boise , Idaho , United States