Everything about Ben Gazzara totally explained
Biagio Anthony “Ben” Gazzara (born
August 28,
1930) is an American
actor in
television and
motion pictures.
Biography
Early life
Gazzara was born in
New York City, the son of
Italian immigrants Angelina (
née Cusumano) and Antonio Gazzara, who was a laborer. Gazzara grew up on New York's tough
Lower East Side. He attended New York City's famed
Stuyvesant High School. He found relief from his bleak surroundings by joining a theater company at a very young age. Years later, he said that the discovery of his love for acting saved him from a life of crime during his teen years. Despite his obvious talent, he went to
City College of New York to study
electrical engineering. After two years, he relented, and after a short intermission joined the
Actor's Studio.
Career
In the
1950s, Gazzara starred in various
Broadway productions, most notably
Tennessee Williams'
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, directed by
Elia Kazan. However, he lost out on the film role to
Paul Newman. He was nominated three times for the
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play -- in 1956 for
A Hatful of Rain, in 1975 for the paired short plays
Hughie and
Duet and in 1977 for a revival of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opposite
Colleen Dewhurst.
Gazzara has had a long and varied acting career, with spells as an accomplished director, mostly in television. He joined other Actors Studio members in the 1957 film
The Strange One. Then came a high-profile performance as a soldier on trial for avenging his wife's rape in Otto Preminger's 1959 classic courtroom drama
Anatomy of a Murder.
Subsequent screen credits included
The Young Doctors (1961),
A Rage to Live (1965),
The Bridge at Remagen (1969),
Capone (1975),
Voyage of the Damned (1976), and
High Velocity (1976).
Gazzara became well-known in a couple of television series, beginning with
Arrest and Trial, which ran from 1963-64 on ABC, and the more successful series
Run for Your Life from 1965 to 1968 on
NBC, in which he played a terminally ill man trying to get the most out of the last months of his life.
Some of the actor's most formidable characters were those he created with his friend
John Cassavetes in the
1970s. They collaborated for the first time on Cassavetes' film
Husbands (1970) where he appeared alongside
Peter Falk and Cassavetes himself. In
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie Gazzara took the leading role of the hapless strip joint owner, Cosmo Vitelli. A year later Gazzara starred in yet another Cassavetes-directed movie,
Opening Night, as stage director Manny Victor, who struggles with the mentally unstable star of his show, played by Cassavetes' wife
Gena Rowlands.
In the 1980s, he could be seen in a variety of movies, such as
Saint Jack and
They All Laughed (both directed by
Peter Bogdanovich), and in a villainous role in the oft-televised
Patrick Swayze film
Road House that the actor jokes is probably his most-watched performance. He starred with Rowlands in a controversial and critically acclaimed AIDS-themed TV movie
An Early Frost (1985).
Very much in demand for supporting parts, Gazzara appeared in thirty-eight films in the 1990s, many for TV. He worked with a number of renowned directors, such as the
Coen Brothers (
The Big Lebowski),
Spike Lee (
Summer of Sam),
David Mamet (
The Spanish Prisoner),
Walter Hugo Khouri (
Forever),
Todd Solondz (
Happiness),
John Turturro (
Illuminata), and
John McTiernan (
The Thomas Crown Affair).
Well into his seventies, Gazzara continues to be active. In 2003, he was in the ensemble cast of the experimental film
Dogville, directed by
Lars von Trier of Denmark and starring
Nicole Kidman. Several other projects have recently been completed or are currently in production.
Personal life
Gazzara contracted throat cancer in 1999. He lost more than 40 pounds during treatment.
He has been married three times, to Louise Erickson (1951-57), actress Janice Rule (1961-79) and Elke Krivat (sometimes listed as Elke Stuckmann) since 1982.
In his 2004 autobiography, "In the Moment: My Life as an Actor," the actor recounts his love affair with actress
Audrey Hepburn. They co-starred in two of her final films, "Bloodline" (1979) and "They All Laughed" (1981).
Further Information
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