Ernest Borginine

His specialty was ordinary people, from the street. He was able to play tough guys, but also sensitive men, almost always hopeless and without many life prospects. Ernest Borgnine worked in big blockbusters and sub-products of three to a quarter, but he always turned out to be credible in his extensive filmography, which practically reaches two hundred films.

Ernest Effron Borgnino (Haden, Connecticut, 1917) was the only child of a humble marriage of Italian emigrants. When Ernest was only a few months old, his parents separated, although they got back together years later. In any case, the boy overcame his family problems and grew up healthy and happy, dedicated to studies and sports. When he graduated from high school he decided to enlist in the army, where he remained during World War II. There he would meet those brutal guys that he would later portray so well on the screens. “There were guys capable of knocking you to the ground without stopping smiling. And you thought they were nice guys until they hit you,” recalls the actor.

After the conflict ended, his mother unexpectedly told him one day that he had thought about being an actor, because in her opinion, he had always liked ‘clowning’ a lot. Young Ernest felt as if the gates of heaven had been opened, for he realized that he was exactly what he had always wanted to be. So he enrolled at the Randall School of Drama in Hartford. After finishing his studies, he tried his luck in the theater, first with a Virginia company, although four years later he made his Broadway debut in the play ‘Harvey’, where he had a small role as a nurse.

Determined to succeed in the cinema, he moved to Los Angeles, where after taking his first steps on television, he managed to make his film debut with small roles in titles such as El poder invisible . His first major job is in From Here to Eternity , where he was the cruel and violent Sergeant ‘Fatso’ Judson, Prewitt’s biggest enemy – Montgomery Clift – at the military base, and who kills Frank Sinatra ‘s character Angelo Maggio. , from a beating. From that moment on, they typecast him in villainous roles, which he interprets with great brilliance, as can be seen in Johnny Guitar ., where he was Bart Lonergan, the guy who intimidated the character from which the title comes. “I didn’t come here looking for a fight, Mr. Lonergan,” Johnny would say. And he would reply coldly: “Call me Bart. Friends call me Bart.” “As you wish, Mr. Lonergan,” he would say. It was one of several unforgettable dialogues in the film.

After Veracruz , Conspiracy of silence and Bounty hunter , he gives a radical turn to his career, playing a sensitive butcher, full of humanity, insecure and single, who lives in the Bronx with his authoritarian mother, in the unforgettable Marty , by Delbert Mann , an essential piece on loneliness and affective needs. His work as a drifting loser earned him the Oscar for best actor, one of the four that the film received, which also won those for adapted screenplay, director and film. Brilliant phrases were not lacking on this occasion for Borgnine either: “I’ve been looking for a girl every Saturday night of my life.” MartyIt became the great surprise of 1955, for being a human, intimate story that competed at the box office with the big blockbusters.

Unfortunately, during the post- Marty years , Borgnine fails to find such juicy roles. He stands out as a deluxe secondary, in titles such as The Vikings , Arizona, Federal Prison , Barabbas , The Flight of the Phoenix and the Dirty Dozen . On television he became very popular with the McHale Army series , which led to two irregular films with Borgnine himself. In the late 1950s, Borgnine divorced his wife, Rhoda Kemins, and married the famous Mexican actress Katy Jurado , co-star of Alone in Danger. But they didn’t last long, and Borgnine has been married three more times. Whenever a relationship ended, he would quickly pair up again, as if he was afraid of being alone. With one of his wives, the actress Ethel Merman ( Footlights ), he broke all records, as they divorced a month later, just when they returned from their honeymoon.

The actor is especially remembered for The Wild Bunch , where he played Dutch, Pike Bishop’s lieutenant, the ringleader of a gang of veteran bank robbers capable of any brutality, but who nonetheless have a great sense of friendship and loyalty to each other. themselves. “All my films have moral content. It is true that the Wild Bunch made ultraviolent and bloody movies fashionable. But it had a clear moral: that in the end the bad guys get what they deserve.” He has repeated many times in interviews that he was moved when he shot the last sequence of his character in the movie. When he had finished doing the scene, he missed the director’s usual ‘cut’ yell. “The director, Sam Peckinpahhe had gone completely silent. I thought he had done something wrong. Suddenly, I found out that he was crying; she shed tears. He finally said that this is how cinema should be made, with professionals ”.

After The Poseidon Adventure , about a luxurious ocean liner that sinks, Borgnine’s career is also in the water. From the 70s, he continues to work regularly, many times in unfortunate films, since few titles are saved. They highlight his work as a Roman centurion in Jesus of Nazareth , The Emperor of the North , 1997: Rescue in New York , and Gattaca . He has been active throughout his life, in film and television. In 1996 he was about to lose his life in a plane crash. Since then he bought himself a big bus to tour the country, and he did a great deal of appearing at conferences and public gatherings with his admirers.