George kennedy actor biography eric close
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My first, indelible movie image of a terrible midwestern blizzard has George Kennedy’s face on it, which made it seem like nothing, really.
On Sunday the Oscar winning Kennedy died, according to his grandson’s Facebook post. There should be a special place in the afterlife for character actors like Kennedy, a celestial dressing room where there are no “No Smoking” signs, and all the reliable, familiar utility men and women who’ve passed on can enjoy each other’s stories about everybody they worked with in the industry.
Kennedy won his supporting actor Oscar for “Cool Hand Luke” (1967). inom didn’t come to that Paul Newman vehicle until much later. My first encounter with Kennedy, at age 9, was the G-rated but Very Grown Up disaster movie/soap opera “Airport” (1970), set in Chicago, at fictional Lincoln International Airport. The movie was a huge hit (10 Oscar nominations, which seems a mite excessive today), and the ai
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — George Kennedy, the hulking, tough-guy character actor who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a savage chain-gang convict in the 1960s classic “Cool Hand Luke,” has died.
His grandson Cory Schenkel says Kennedy died on Sunday morning of old age in Boise, Idaho. He was 91.
He had undergone emergency triple bypass surgery in 2002. That same year, he and his late wife moved to Idaho to be closer to their daughter and her family, though he still was involved in occasional film projects.
His biggest acting achievement came in “Cool Hand Luke,” a 1967 film about a rebellious war hero played by Paul Newman who is bent on bucking the system as a prisoner on a Southern chain gang. Its theme of rebelling against authority and the establishment helped make it one of the most important films of the tumultuous 1960s.
Kennedy played the role of Dragline, the chain-gang boss who goes from Luke’s No. 1 nemesis to his biggest disc
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Who says you can’t beat a Ewing?
As the original “Dallas” neared its end, two Westar board members invited J.R. to become the company’s new chairman. J.R. found the offer too good to refuse, so he sold his share of Ewing Oil to Cliff Barnes and accepted the offer to join Westar — only to have the rug pulled out from beneath him by Carter McKay. In “The Decline and Fall of the Ewing Empire,” J.R. discovered the Westar job was a ruse; Carter’s minions had dangled the offer in front of J.R. long enough for him to sell Ewing Oil, and then Carter snatched Westar away, leaving J.R. with nothing.
History repeated itself, sort of, as TNT’s “Dallas” sequel series drew to a close. Carter’s grandson Hunter encouraged J.R.’s son John Ross to take Ewing Global public, making shares of the company available to outside investors. In “Victims of Love,” Hunter, with help from partner-in-crime Nicolas Trevino, purchased all of Ewing Global’s shares during the company’s initial public offering — sei