Call Rod Steiger a character actor and never expect another Christmas card from the man again and given the actor would secure awards for his exemplary acting from every possible organization, he was surely justified for having those feelings. Born Rodney Stephen Steiger in 1925, Long Island, New York, the son of two vaudevillians. Estranged from his father he was brought up by his mother Lorraine, a troubled alcoholic. The fraught atmosphere at home prompted the young Steiger to leave and enlist in the Navy at the age of sixteen. It was the second year of the war and Rodney would serve on one of the Destroyers via the Pacific.
One of Steiger's assignments was a particularly disturbing one - he was to take out an unarmed Japanese fishing boat, an action he would feel remorse for his entire life. After the war, Steiger returned to the New York roost with a hankering to pursue acting and that he would, he joined a local drama group before attending both the New School and the famed Actors Studio where he would emerge as one of the esteemed school's most promising students. Reared on the Stanislavsky method, he was partial to the stage and Broadway soon beckoned landing him his first substantial role in 1951's Night Music. He would be cast later that year as Frank in Fred Zinnemann's achieved melodrama Teresa.
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| Steiger has some ecumenical matters in The Amityville Horror (1979) |
Steiger in summation starred in nearly a hundred and fifty productions and would take home an Oscar in 1968 for his portrayal of Gillespie in Norman Jewison's police procedural In The Heat of the Night (1967). Two nods for the academy award would ensue prior in 1955 and 1965 for On The Waterfront and for his staggering portrayal of Sol Nazerman in Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker respectively. His career spanned over half a century, the last picture in which he would star was 2002's Poolhall Junkies.
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| Steiger the smiling policeman in the role that would earn him a golden feller (In The Heat of the Night,1967) |
The outspoken actor was famously dramatic off the stage, you could also say he had a love for the ladies (he was married five times) and from the mouth of the horse was quoted as being '60 percent virgin and 40 percent whore.' The industry incessantly attempted to vilify the actor; relentlessly besmirching his character, insinuating he was little more than a rogue and womanizer but although Steiger didn't always keep it secured in his trousers as rumors abounded that his close friendship with Elizabeth Taylor entailed just a tad bit more and though he had a torrid affair with a desirous Diana Dors his bark was still far away from his actual bite. The actor struggled for decades with both chronic depression and anxiety as a result of post-traumatic stress suffered after the war; he turned to therapy in the late 1950's. A demonstrative Steiger would go the talk show circuit and on record, never one to sequester this battle with illness, opened up the book of his life for the world to peruse. Despite his pain endured, he would never stop persevering his craft.
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| Rod could've been a contender, nominated for his role in The Pawnbroker (1965) |
Rod Steiger passed away in 2002 at the age of seventy-seven due to renal complications,he was survived by his fifth and final wife Joan Benedict, who married the actor in 2000.