Eli Wallach, who was one of his generation’s most prominent and prolific character actors in film, onstage and on television for more than 65 years, died of natural causes on June 24, 2014. He was 98.
His death was confirmed by his daughter Katherine.
One of Hollywood’s finest character actors, Eli Wallach , appeared alongside the biggest stars, including Clark Gable, Clint Eastwood, Barbra Streisand, Michael Douglas, Steve McQueen, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner, Peter O’Toole, and Al Pacino, to name a few.
Eli Wallach was born on December 7, 1915 in Brooklyn, NY, to Jewish parents who emigrated from Poland, and was one of the few Jewish kids in his mostly Italian neighborhood. He went on to graduate with a B.A. from the University of Texas in Austin, but gained his dramatic training with the Actors Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse. He made his debut on Broadway in 1945, and won a Tony Award in 1951 for portraying Alvaro Mangiacavallo in the Tennessee Williams play “The Rose Tattoo”.
Eli Wallach made a strong screen debut in 1956 in the film version of the Tennessee Williams play Baby Doll (1956), shined as “Dancer”, the nattily dressed hitman, in director Don Siegel’s film-noir classic The Lineup (1958), and co-starred in the heist film Seven Thieves (1960). Director John Sturges then cast Eli Wallach as vicious Mexican bandit Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960), the western adaptation of the Akira Kurosawa epic Seven Samurai (1954). By all reports, Wallach could not ride a horse prior to making “The Magnificent Seven”, but expert tutelage from the film’s Mexican stunt riders made it look easy. He next appeared in the superb The Misfits (1961), in the star-spangled western opus How the West Was Won (1962), the WW2 film The Victors (1963), as a kidnapper in The Moon-Spinners (1964), in the sea epic Lord Jim (1965) and in the romantic comedy How to Steal a Million (1966).
Looking for a third lead actor in the final episode of the “Dollars Trilogy”, Italian director Sergio Leone cast the versatile Eli Wallach as the lying, two-faced, money-hungry (but somehow lovable) bandit “Tuco” in the spectacular The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) arguably his most memorable performance. Eli Wallach kept busy throughout the remainder of the 1960s and into the 1970s with good roles in Mackenna’s Gold (1969), Cinderella Liberty (1973), Crazy Joe (1974), The Deep (1977) and as Steve McQueen’s bail buddy in The Hunter (1980).
The 1980s was an interesting period for Eli Wallach, as he was regularly cast as an aging doctor, a Mafia figure or an over-the-hill hitman, such as in The Executioner’s Song (1982), Our Family Honor (1985), Tough Guys (1986), Nuts (1987), The Two Jakes (1990) and as the candy-addicted “Don Altabello” in The Godfather: Part III (1990).
His final major motion picture appearance was in 2010, opposite Michael Douglas, in Wall Street 2.
In 2005, Eli Wallach released his autobiography, “The Good, The Bad And Me: In My Anecdotage.”
Despite his many years of film work, some of it critically acclaimed, Eli Wallach was never nominated for an Academy Award. But in November 2010, less than a month before his 95th birthday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an honorary Oscar, saluting him as “the quintessential chameleon, effortlessly inhabiting a wide range of characters, while putting his inimitable stamp on every role.”
Among his survivors is actress and frequent co-star Anne Jackson, his wife of 66 years.
