Rod Steiger

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Rod Steiger 1995
Rod Steiger at the premiere of the film FIST , 1978

Rodney Stephen Steiger (born April 14, 1925 in Westhampton , Long Island , New York , † July 9, 2002 in Los Angeles ) was an American actor . He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1968 .

Life

Steiger was born in Westhampton to Lorraine and Frederick Steiger. During World War II he served in the United States Navy . He then returned to New Jersey and attended The Actors Studio , run by Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan . This drama school taught method acting , a method developed by Strasberg, which is about a high degree of empathy with the character to be portrayed in order to achieve the greatest possible identification . Steiger became a strong representative of this style of representation.

Steiger has appeared in more than a hundred films since his debut with a small role in Fred Zinnemann's drama Teresa . He was nominated for an Oscar for Die Faust im Nacken and Der Pfandleiher , and for Der Pfandleiher he received the Silver Bear at the 1964 Berlinale . In 1965 he played one of the leading roles in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago , one of the greatest hit films of the 1960s.

In 1968 he received the Oscar for his role as Sheriff Bill Gillespie, opposite Sidney Poitier in the film In the Heat of the Night . For his role in this film he received other awards, including a. a Golden Globe , a British Film Academy Award , a Laurel Award, and a New York Film Critics Circle Award . The film marked the high point of his career for Steiger, who was rather unsuccessful in his further choice of roles and from the late 1960s onwards he could hardly post any major film successes.

He turned down the leading roles in the films Patton and The Godfather , which became big box-office hits. In the 1970s he appeared frequently in European productions in which he portrayed historical figures. In 1970 he played in Sergei Bondarchuk's epic film Waterloo Napoleon Bonaparte and in 1974 took on the title role in Carlo Lizzani's film Mussolini - The Last Days . He played the Duce a second time in 1981 in Omar Mukhtar - Lion of the Desert . He took on the role of the Roman procurator Pontius Pilatus in the miniseries Jesus von Nazareth (1977).

In 1982 he appeared in Hans W. Geißendörfer's film adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain as Mynheer Peeperkorn . In his penultimate role, in Der Himmel von Hollywood based on the novel by Leon de Winter , he played in 2001 under the direction of Sönke Wortmann .

In the 1960s (including In the Heat of the Night ) Steiger was dubbed by Martin Hirthe , while Hans Teuscher was his standard voice during the 1990s (including in Mars Attacks ).

Steiger was married a total of five times: from 1959 to 1969 with the actress Claire Bloom , from 2000 until his death in 2002 with the actress Joan Benedict . He died in Los Angeles Hospital and was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles .

Films (selection)

Awards

Web links

Commons : Rod Steiger  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Current Biography . HW Wilson Co., 1991, p. 407 .
  2. ↑ Rod Steiger Biography ( Memento from May 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Steiger, Rod
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Steiger, Rodney Stephen (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Westhampton , New York
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 2002
Place of death los Angeles