Another of Hollywood’s most recognisable lights has passed away today, as US actor Ernest Borgnine died at the age of 95.
Perhaps best known for his role as Quinton McHale in the 1962–66 series McHale’s Navy, Borgnine’s most critically acclaimed role in the multiple award-winning Marty (1955), for which he won an Oscar, a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for Best Actor.
Beginning his career in the navy, he became best known as an actor. Borgnine appeared in a number of classic films during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, not least of which were From Here to Eternity (1953), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Poseidon Adventure (1972). In 2011, he was given a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award by the Screen Actors Guild.
Borgnine was unafraid to parody some of his own roles and persona, as appeared as himself in The Simpsons episode “Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood”, in addition to a number of television commercials
Borgnine was more recently the voice of Mermaid Man on TV’s Spongebob Squarepants. Continuing to work right up until his death, he recently completed work on The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez with writer-director Elia Petridis, which is due out some time in 2012.
