George Kennedy

Kennedy was born on February 18, 1925, in New York City,[1] into a show business family. His father, George Harris Kennedy, a musician and orchestra leader, died when Kennedy was four years old.[2] He was raised by his mother, Helen A. (née Kieselbach), a ballet dancer.[1] His maternal grandfather was a German immigrant; his other ancestry was Irish and English.[1]

Kennedy made his stage debut at age 2 in a touring company of Bringing Up Father, and by age 7, he was a New York City radio DJ.[3]

Kennedy graduated in 1943 from Chaminade High School in Mineola, Long Island, New York.[4]

Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army during World War II in 1943. He served 16 years, reaching the rank of captain. Kennedy served in the infantry under George S. Patton, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and earned two Bronze Stars. He re-enlisted after the war, and he was discharged in the late 1950s due to a back injury.[2][3][5]

Promotional photo of Kennedy for the TV series Sarge, 1971

His first notable screen role was a military policeman on the TV sitcom The Phil Silvers Show,[3] where he also served as a technical adviser to ensure accuracy for the show's military base setting. Kennedy later described the Silvers show as "a great training ground".[2]

His film career began in 1961 in The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. He appeared in several Hollywood movies, including as a sadistic jail guard in the Kirk Douglas modern western Lonely Are the Brave (1962), a ruthless criminal in the Cary Grant suspense film Charade (1963), and in the Joan Crawford thriller Strait-Jacket (1964).

Kennedy was busy in 1965. He appeared with Gregory Peck in the mystery Mirage, with a large cast led by James Stewart in the plane-crash adventure The Flight of the Phoenix, with John Wayne in the war film In Harm's Way, and with Wayne and Dean Martin in the western The Sons of Katie Elder.

He played the character Blodgett in a 1966 episode "Return to Lawrence" of the series The Legend of Jesse James. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Cool Hand Luke (1967) for his performance as Dragline, a chain-gang convict who at first resents the new prisoner in camp played by Paul Newman, then comes to idolize the rebellious Luke.

Kennedy followed with films such as The Dirty Dozen, Bandolero!, and The Boston Strangler. In 1970, he appeared in the disaster film Airport, in which he played one of its main characters, airline troubleshooter Joe Patroni. He reprised this role in Airport 1975, Airport '77 and The Concorde ... Airport '79, the only cast member to appear in each film of the series.

The Airport franchise helped inspire the Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker satire Airplane!, in which the filmmakers hoped to cast Kennedy as the bumbling plane dispatcher. The role went to Lloyd Bridges because Kennedy "couldn't kill off his Airport cash-cow", Jerry Zucker said in 2010.[6]

Kennedy co-starred with Clint Eastwood in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and The Eiger Sanction, and with ensemble casts in the disaster film Earthquake and the Agatha Christie mystery Death on the Nile.

Kennedy as Bumper Morgan in The Blue Knight, 1976

He also starred in two television series: Sarge, which aired from 1971 to 1972 and The Blue Knight from 1975 to 1976.

Kennedy starred in two Japanese productions, Junya Satō's Proof of the Man in 1977 and Kinji Fukasaku's Virus in 1980. Both films were produced by Haruki Kadokawa and featured extensive international casts and shooting locations. Although Proof of the Man was only released theatrically in Japan and Virus saw a financially unsuccessful truncated cut in the U.S., Kennedy was highly enthusiastic about his involvement.[7]

In 1984, Kennedy starred with Bo Derek in the box-office bomb Bolero. His other films during the 1980s included Savage Dawn, The Delta Force and Creepshow 2, and he played a top supporting role in the comedy film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! in 1988. There were two sequels in which Kennedy again co-starred.

In 1990, Kennedy appeared in the Korean film Mayumi directed by Shin Sang-ok. Despite featuring Kennedy, it saw no wide release outside of South Korea and was ultimately a box-office failure.[8]

On television, Kennedy starred as Carter McKay in the Tv series Dallas (1978–1991), appearing from 1988 to 1991. From the mid- to late-1990s, he promoted "Breathasure" tablets in radio and television commercials.[9][10] Around this time, he reprised his role as McKay in the television films Dallas: J.R. Returns and Dallas: War of the Ewings. In the late 1970s, Kennedy also appeared as a celebrity guest on the game show Match Game.

In 1998, he voiced Brick Bazooka for the film Small Soldiers. He then made several independent films, before making a 2003 comeback to television in The Young and the Restless, playing the character Albert Miller, the biological father to character Victor Newman. In 2005, he made a cameo in the film Don't Come Knocking, playing the director of an ill-fated western.

Kennedy made his final film appearance in The Gambler (2014) as Ed, the dying grandfather of Mark Wahlberg's Jim Bennett. His role lasts for less than two minutes during the film's opening scene, wherein Ed (moments before his death) bequeaths the responsibilities of patriarch to a heartbroken Jim.

The hand prints of Kennedy in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

For his contributions to motion pictures, Kennedy received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6352 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.[13]

Kennedy wrote three books. In 1983, he wrote the murder mystery Murder On Location, set on a film shoot. A second novel, Murder on High, was released in 1984. In 2011, he wrote his autobiography, Trust Me.[73]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Kennedy.

• George Kennedy at IMDb