Rod Steiger Biography

Steiger grew up with his mother, who suffered with alcoholism, before running away from home at the age of sixteen to join the US Navy during World War II. After the war he returned to New Jersey and joined a drama group, before studying drama full-time under Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan at The Actor's Studio.

It wasn’t until the early 1950s that he won his first film roles. His first major one was in Teresa (1951), with his first lead role coming in the television version of Marty (1953) (TV). Steiger's breakthrough role came in 1954 with the classic On the Waterfront (1954), where he most memorably shared the backseat of a cab with screen brother Marlon Brando, who played washed-up ex-boxer Terry. The performance earned him an Academy nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

After On the Waterfront, Steiger made his presence felt as a movie tycoon in Robert Aldrich's Hollywood tale The Big Knife (1955); a scheming attorney in Otto Preminger's The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955); and villain Jud in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of the Broadway musical Oklahoma! (1955). Further underlining his effusive talent and his intense screen style, Steiger co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in Bogart's final film, The Harder They Fall (1956); played an Irish-accented ex-soldier in Run of the Arrow (1957); played a psychopath in Cry Terror! (1958); and raged as mobster Al Capone (1959).

However, Steiger’s career defining moment came in 1967, when he won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of Sheriff Bill Gillespie in In the Heat of the Night (1967) opposite Sidney Poitier. The Norman Jewison-directed film, based on a John Ball novel, tells the story of a black police detective who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a racist small town in Mississippi.

The multi-talented actor also played well known historical figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte in Waterloo (1970); Benito Mussolini in The Last Four Days (1974) and again in Lion in the Desert (1981); W.C. Fields in W.C. Fields and Me (1976); Pontius Pilate in Franco Zeffirelli's TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977); and mob boss Sam Giancana in the TV miniseries Sinatra (1992).

Among his better known roles in later years was as the priest who is attacked by flies in The Amityville Horror (1979); a latino crime boss in The Specialist (1994) opposite Sylvester Stallone; and as an aggressive Army general in the Tim Burton comedy Mars Attacks! (1996).

In 1976 Steiger had a triple heart bypass, which sent the actor into a sustained spell of depression lasting almost eight years. He eventually died in Los Angeles at the age of 77, of pneumonia and complications from the surgery.

The Oscar-winning actor was married five times; to the actress Sally Gracie between 1952 and 1958; actress Claire Bloom between 1959 and 1969; Sherry Nelson between 1973 and 1979; Paula Ellis for eleven years between 1986 and 1997; and finally to actress Joan Benedict from 2000 until his death. He had a daughter, the opera singer Anna Steiger from his marriage to Bloom, and a son by his marriage to Ellis.