He was the son of Italian immigrants who would join the illustrious Actors' Studio, and would become a highly-respected character actor. Ben Gazzara died on February 3 after battling pancreatic cancer at age 81.
Gazzara never received any Academy Award nominations for his acting work on film, but he was an Emmy-winning and Tony-nominated actor for television and theater respectively. His first major role anywhere came on stage, with a stint as Brick in a Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (though Paul Newman would get the role for the film version, released in 1958). Gazzara made his film debut in the 1957 military college drama The Strange One, in which he worked alongside several students and teachers from the Actors' Studio.
It wasn't until 1959 when Gazzara achieved his breakthrough role. He was chosen by Otto Preminger for his legal drama Anatomy of a Murder, playing a soldier facing charges after seeking revenge for the rape of his wife. Gazzara starred alongside Oscar winners James Stewart & George C. Scott and Oscar nominee Lee Remick (who played his wife). While Gazzara appeared in movies throughout the 1960s, his work on TV got him more notice - especially for the series Run for Your Life. Created by Roy Huggins (The Fugitive), Gazzara played a terminally ill man who goes on the road to experience the things he always wanted to do.
The 1970s gave Gazzara more on-screen time, with some of that shared with long-time friend John Cassavetes. The two first worked together on the 1970 drama Husbands, alongside another favorite actor-friend of Cassavetes in Peter Falk. Gazzara would appear in two more Cassavetes films, 1976's The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and 1977's Opening Night. Cassavetes' wife Gena Rowlands would feature prominently in one of Gazzara's best roles, playing the father of a young man dying of AIDS in the highly-acclaimed 1985 telefilm An Early Frost.
Gazzara would get other prominent directors to give him major roles in their films: Peter Bogdanovich's 1981 dramedy They All Laughed, David Mamet's 1997 thriller The Spanish Prisoner, the Coen Brothers through their 1998 cult classic The Big Lebowski, and Spike Lee even cast him for his 1999 drama Summer of Sam. He would star opposite Patrick Swayze in another cult classic, the 1989 thriller Road House.
The 2000s gave Gazzara small but prominent roles on film and TV projects - an Emmy-winning turn in the HBO film Hysterical Blindness (with Rowlands and Uma Thurman), Lars von Trier's minimalist 2003 drama Dogville (opposite Nicole Kidman), and the action thriller 13 (co-starring with Mickey Rourke and Jason Statham). He had worked on a new project, The Wait, at the time of his death.
Ben Gazzara may have had a face audiences recognized, but a name not many film fans know of. Yet his career took him through film, TV and the stage for nearly 60 years - with praise and awards brought in for his work. From Cassavetes to Coen, from Swayze to Falk, Gazzara was a strong force on the screen - and a great character actor to witness.
Comments