Post by petrolino on Oct 4, 2019 23:21:21 GMT
Charles Durning
Charles Durning was born in Highland Falls, New York. He was raised Catholic. He often travelled to Ireland to visit family members.
"Charles Durning knew first-hand the horrors of war. Born in Highland Falls, New York state, he grew up near the military academy at West Point. His mother, Louise, laundered the clothes of the cadets there. His father, James, was badly injured in the first world war. Charles joined the army aged 17 and took part in the D-day landing aged 21. In a Memorial Day speech in 2007, he recalled: "I was the second man off my barge, and the first and third man got killed." Shot in the hip shortly afterwards, he spent months in hospital, then fought at the Battle of the Bulge. He received the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts."
- Chris Weigand, The Guardian
"After his military discharge, he held several jobs: elevator operator, ironworker, cab driver, dance instructor, boxer. He fought on the same card as another future actor, Jack Warden, in New York's Madison Square Garden. While working as an usher in a burlesque joint, Charles Durning was hired to replace a drunken actor onstage. He plowed into his new calling, performing in roughly 50 Brooklyn stock company productions and in various off-Broadway plays. He attracted the attention of Joseph Papp: Beginning in 1962, Durning appeared in 35 plays as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival. During this period, he segued into TV, notching a stint as a police chief on the NBC soap opera Another World. Durning made his film debut in 1965, playing in Harvey Middleman, Fireman."
- Duane Byrge, The Hollywood Reporter
"Like Tommy, the aimless barfly he plays in 'Trees Lounge', the melancholic 1996 indie film he also wrote and directed, Steve Buscemi found himself in a spiral of hopelessness after leaving school, jumping from one part-time job to another: cinema usher, ice-cream seller, petrol station attendant. There were many long nights in bars. “I really had difficulty there [on Long Island] in my last couple of years because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing,” he says. “I felt my life was going nowhere.” His father had pushed all four of his sons to take a civil service exam, in Buscemi’s case as an avenue to a career with the fire service, where he would work for four years.
... In 2005, Buscemi went back to his old high school in Valley Stream, a predominantly Irish-Italian neighbourhood, to receive an award. Talking to students he recalled his anxious youth. “I still get scared,” he told them. “I try to live with it, and you keep going.”
In 'Park Bench', Buscemi’s charming, little-watched web-only talk show, a telling moment comes during a conversation with the Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA. The rapper recalls his childhood inspirations, including Don McLean and Neil Sedaka, prompting an elated Buscemi to offer a formative experience of his own. “I went to the mall and bought some 45s. I ran into a bunch of girls from my school and they reached into my bag and pulled out Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” he says. “I could tell they were embarrassed for me, and I thought: ‘I don’t care, I like this song.’”
Something about his response to being shamed for his dubious musical tastes – “I don’t care” – captures the animating spirit of an actor. Buscemi is among the least pretentious actors you will find, as comfortable working with Adam Sandler as with the Coen Brothers. When he describes Sandler as an “auteur” he is not doing it to be funny or contrary; he means it. “We just really hit it off when we did Airheads,” he says, referring to their first film together, pithily reviewed by Time Out in 1994 as a movie “about airheads, and for them, too”. Bad reviews, the few there are, glide off Buscemi like water off a duck’s back."
In 'Park Bench', Buscemi’s charming, little-watched web-only talk show, a telling moment comes during a conversation with the Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA. The rapper recalls his childhood inspirations, including Don McLean and Neil Sedaka, prompting an elated Buscemi to offer a formative experience of his own. “I went to the mall and bought some 45s. I ran into a bunch of girls from my school and they reached into my bag and pulled out Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” he says. “I could tell they were embarrassed for me, and I thought: ‘I don’t care, I like this song.’”
Something about his response to being shamed for his dubious musical tastes – “I don’t care” – captures the animating spirit of an actor. Buscemi is among the least pretentious actors you will find, as comfortable working with Adam Sandler as with the Coen Brothers. When he describes Sandler as an “auteur” he is not doing it to be funny or contrary; he means it. “We just really hit it off when we did Airheads,” he says, referring to their first film together, pithily reviewed by Time Out in 1994 as a movie “about airheads, and for them, too”. Bad reviews, the few there are, glide off Buscemi like water off a duck’s back."
- Aaron Hicklin, The Oberver
Charles Durning
'New York City Blues' - Neil Sedaka
In the 1960s, Charles Durning threw himself into theatre when he became a regular performer of the works of William Shakespeare. He'd been working as a ballroom dancing instructor and had exhibited a talent for choreography, something that would help him learn to negotiate the stage (Durning said he took to dancing more naturally than acting). As the years elapsed, Durning became noted for his acting work in plays by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Gore Vidal, Jules Feiffer, Lanford Wilson, Donald Coburn and Jason Miller. He recited Moliere in public, delivered story readings of Eugene O'Neill, acted in stage variations of Vladimir Nabokov's prose and physically rendered poems by Oscar Wilde. He performed Anton Chekhov in theatre, Henrik Ibsen in film and Luigi Pirandello in the park, gaining significant attention for his intepretations of Bertolt Brecht. His relationships with playwrights Sam Shepard and David Mamet extended into film and he was a friend of Neil Simon.
Durning was a Tony Award winner and a recipient of the Drama Desk Award. He also won a Golden Globe for his work in television and was nominated 9 times at the Emmy Awards. In 1999, Durning was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame on Broadway.
Maureen Stapleton & Charles Durning in 'The Queen Of The Stardust Ballroom' filmed in Woodhaven, Queens, New York
Interview with Charles Durning
Charles Durning came up through cinema with a small group of film radicals who'd come to be associated with independent producer Edward Pressman - notably Brian De Palma, Terrence Malick and Paul Williams. Durning was also connected with John Avildsen who trod similar paths in New York.
Brian De Palma
'Hi Mom' (1970)
With Jennifer Salt in 'Sisters' (1973)
With Amy Irving in 'The Fury' (1978)
Voicing with Al Pacino in 'Scarface' (1983)
'You With Darkness On Your Mind' - Neil Sedaka
Fred Walton
With Colleen Dewhurst in 'When A Stranger Calls' (1979)
'Hadley's Rebellion' (1987)
With Donald Sutherland in 'The Rosary Murders' (1987)
With Carol Kane & Jill Schoelen in 'When A Stranger Calls Back' (1993)
'The Last Picasso' - Neil Diamond
Burt Reynolds
'Sharky's Machine' (1981)
'Stick' (1985)
'Fallin' - Connie Francis
Durning worked with some gifted holdovers from the Golden Age of Cinema, including Billy Wilder, Robert Wise, Robert Aldrich and John Cassavetes. He also worked with a number of filmmakers associated with the Golden Age of Television, including Sidney Lumet, John Frankenheimer, Daniel Mann, George Roy Hill, Bernard Kowalski, Alan Pakula, Robert Mulligan, Sydney Pollack, Robert Ellis Miller and Don Taylor.
Durning was nominated twice for an Academy Award. He was honored with the Life Achievement Award at the 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Award Ceremony, on January 27, 2008.
Charles Durning
With Walter McGinn, Paul Sorvino, Richard Dysart & Michael McGuire
With Elliott Gould & Ed Asner
With George C. Scott
With Julie Harris
'Dog Day Afternoon : Scene Comparisons' | 'The Fury : Side-By-Side (On Location)'
Stage performer Steve Buscemi looked up to Charles Durning as an inspiration. Both were Catholics from New York who'd held down similar jobs (both men tried their hand at stand-up comedy). Buscemi got to direct Durning in an episode of 'Homicide : Life On The Street'. They were both members of the Coen Brothers' informal stock company and they worked together in the theatre.
On July 31, 2008, Joe Mantegna presented Durning with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame adjacent to his idol, James Cagney. This same year, Durning received the Légion d’honneur from the French consul in Los Angeles, awarded for distinguished service in France.
Following his death on Christmas Eve in 2012, the lights on Broadway were temporarily dimmed in honour of both he and Jack Klugman, who died the same day.
Charles Durning with the Golden Girls