Oscar Profile #117: Charles Durning

Born February 28, 1923 in Highland Falls, New York to Louise (née Leonard) and James Durning, Charles Durning was the fourth eldest of ten children, only five of whom survived into adulthood. His father, a wounded World War I veteran died when he was twelve. Five of his six sisters died of scarlet fever and smallpox. Because his father was unable to work, his mother supported the family as a laundress at West Point.

Durning left home at 16. He took numerous jobs to support himself including becoming a professional boxer and later a trained dance instructor. His first show business job was as an usher and later comedian at a burlesque house in Buffalo, New York.

Drafted into the Army during World War II, Durning was one of the first troops to land at Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. He was the only member of his battalion to survive although he was severely wounded in the left and right thighs, right hand, frontal region of the head and interior left chest wall. He was declared fit to return to service on December 6, 1944 and arrived at the front in time to participate in the Battle of the Bulge where he was captured by the Germans. As the war drew to a close, he was one of approximately one hundred POWs rounded up and shot by the Nazis. He was one of twenty soldiers who escaped and later returned to help identify the victims. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts among other medals.

Durning’s journey to gain recognition as actor was a long one. He first appeared on TV in a minor role in live play in 1953, but did not make another appearance until 1962, again in a minor role. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 in several minor roles in Poor Blios. He continued to work steadily in TV, stage and film but did not attract much noticed in the media until his acclaimed performance in the 1972 Broadway play That Championship Season, which led to his being cast in the 1973 film The Sting where he finally gained the attention of the general public at the age of 50 as the police lieutenant. Steady high profile roles followed. In fact, Durning was in such demand during the next thirty-nine years that he hardly had any time off, playing everything from a Nazi colonel to Pope John XXIII and Santa Claus.

His portrayal of the police negotiator in 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon earned him a Golden Globe nomination and his 1982 portrayal of the light-footed Governor in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas earned him the first of two Oscar nominations, while his portrayal of Jessica Lange’s father in the same year’s Tootsie won him a legion of new fans. He received his second Oscar nomination for the following year’s To Be or Not to Be.

Other film appearances of note include 1979’s North Dallas Forty; 1981’s True Confessions; 1984’s Mass Appeal; 1995’s Home for the Holidays and 2000’s State and Main and O Brother, Where Art Thou? .

Much on TV, he was nominated nine times for Emmys for Queen of the Stardust Ballroom; Captains and the Kings; Attica; Death of a Salesman; Evening Shade (twice); Homicide: Life in the Streets; NCIS (as Mark Harmon’s father) and Rescue Me (as Denis Leary’s father). He won a Golden Globe for The Kennedys of Massachusetts.

He won a Tony for his portrayal of Big Daddy in the 1990 Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. His last Broadway role was as former President Hockstader in the 2000 revival of The Best Man.

He received a career achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2008.

Charles Durning died of natural causes on December 24, 2012, still in high demand with roles in two films this year and one in the can for release next year. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975), directed by Sidney Lumet

Durning was 50 when George Roy Hill gave him the role in which film audiences first noticed him as the police lieutenant in the Paul Newman-Robert Redford starrerThe Sting. Two years later he had an even better role as the police hostage negotiator in Lumet’s acclaimed film based on a real-life incident. Al Pacino had one of his best roles as the man who robs a bank in order to get money for his lover’s sex-change operation. John Cazale as Pacino’s confused accomplice and Chris Sarandon as his lover were also singled out by critics but it was Durning who was the surprise winner of the National Board of Review award for the year’s Best Supporting Actor. He followed that with the first of four Golden Globe nominations but lost a possible Oscar bid to Sarandon.

TRUE CONFESSIONS (1981), directed by Ulu Grosbard

Durning had perhaps his best film role in this modern film noir which takes place in 1947 Los Angeles. Robert De Niroas an ambitious priest and Robert Duvall as his estranged police investigator brother have the leads and they’re both quite good, especially Duvall, but it is Durning as a wealthy businessman and his parish’s chief benefactor who steals the film. Even Burgess Meredith in one of his finest supporting roles as an impoverished priest and Rose Gregario as an ill-fated prostitute can’t compete with Durning at his twisted evil best.

THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS (1982), directed by Colin Higgins

Carol Hall’s musical was a Broadway phenomenon with character players Carlyn Glynn and Henderson Forsyth in the roles of a lifetime as the whorehouse madam and the local sheriff. The film version turned their characters into bigger than life starring roles for Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds which blunts the show’s natural charm. Several of the show’s songs were dumped in order to make way for three songs by Parton, only two of which are actually used in the film. One of the film’s few bright spots is Durning unexpectedly breaking out in song and dance as the Governor who is astonished to find his state has a whorehouse in it. The result was a surprise Oscar nomination followed by an equally surprising nod for the following year’s remake of To Be or Not to Be in which he plays Concentration Camp Erhardt.

TOOTSIE (1982), directed by Sydney Pollack

Durning had one of his most substantial big screen roles as Jessica Lange’s father who develops an attraction for her friend, Dorothy, who is of course Dustin Hoffman in drag. It’s a sweet role and Durning plays it to perfection. Critics of the day thought if the actor received an Oscar nomination that year it should have been for this, not The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, but at least his fellow actors nominated him for something the year after he was ignored for his even better performance in True Confessions.

MASS APPEAL (1984), directed by Glenn Jordan

Despite the fact that he played Santa Claus in five different TV movies, Durning proved over the course of his career that he could play anything, but he was most frequently cast as detectives and priests until he became everyone’s favorite elderly father late in his career. He had perhaps his most memorable role as a priest as the monsignor who makes life miserable for beloved parish priest Jack Lemmon and independent thinking seminary student Zeljo Ivanek in the film version of the Broadway hit that should have been a bigger success on screen than it was. Lemmon, who often received nominations and awards for just showing up gave one of his most nuanced performances in this, with Ivanek and Durning almost matching him.