Happy Man

Let's say goodbye to Ernest Borgnine.  Most guys with his looks wouldn't have been a lead, but he won an Oscar for Best Actor and starred in his own series.

He joined the navy in 1935 and served ten years, all the way through the end of WWII.  After that, he decided to be an actor and worked on the stage for several years before going to Hollywood, where he broke through in From Here To Eternity (1953) as the nasty "Fatso" Judson.  He was a character actor who generally played tough guys in films like Johnny Guitar (1954) and Bad Day At Black Rock (1955).

Then he got to play the title character in Marty (1955), a part originated by Rod Steiger on TV.  Marty was an unmarried butcher without many prospects, living with his mother and hanging out with his friends, who eventually meets a plain, average girls and decides she's the one. The small story, written by Paddy Chayevsky, struck a chord, and won the Oscar for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Screenplay.  It also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. From that point on, while Borgnine wasn't exactly leading man material, he was always more than just a character actor.

In the 60s, he decided to try out television--and return to his navy days--starring as Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale in the sitcom McHale's Navy.  The show was essentially a remake of Sgt. Bilko, but instead of Phil Silvers' fast-talking con man running things, it was Borgnine's more easygoing McHale.  The show was set in the Pacific theatre of WWII (except in the final season when they moved to Italy) and each week McHale's men would pull off some sort of scheme under the nose of the snooping Captain Binghamton.  They'd also occasionally fight the Japanese.

It was a pretty easy gig for Borgnine, who generally played straight man and let the rest of the crew--especially Tim Conway as Ensign Parker--carry most of the plot and comedy.  The show lasted four seasons and made Borgnine more famous than ever.

When it was over, he returned to movies, appearing in notable titles like The Dirty Dozen (1967), Ice Station Zebra (1968), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Escape From New York (1981).

He continued working till the end, appearing in movies such as BASEketball (1997) and RED (2010), and a few year ago received an Emmy nomination for his appearance on ER.

I heard him interviewed several times over the last decade and one thing always came across--he never lost his enthusiam for work or his optimistic outlook, and seemed to believe his life was blessed.