Rod Steiger is a frank and intimate memoir of this troubled and immensely talented actor, one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars, by a film critic and longtime friend of Steiger's. Steiger has lived a life as full of drama as any he portrayed on screen. His father walked out after he was born, and his mother became an alcoholic. At sixteen he enlisted in the navy. With the help of the GI Bill, he studied alongside Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe at the Actors' Studio. Steiger's startling intensity first made its mark on television in Paddy Chayevsky's Marty. On the screen, his career was dramatically established in his second film, On the Waterfront, with Brando. Though he was nominated for an Oscar for his memorable performance in Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker, he didn't win the coveted award until he starred as a redneck police chief in In the Heat of the Night in 1967. In the seventies, at the top of his success, his career faltered and he sank into a deep depression that held him in its grip for several years. Altogether, Steiger has appeared in eighty-seven films.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
As an example of Rod Steiger's plainspoken bluntness, Hutchinson relates an incident in the early 1970s, when the actor used the word "bloody" while speaking to Queen Elizabeth II; Her Majesty was offended. Indeed, in Hutchinson's idiosyncratic rendering, Steiger's power as a performer is closely connected to his social nonconformity and desire to impart his own internal truth. Having grown up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic family in New Jersey and run off, underage, to join the navy during WWII, Steiger had few breaks when he began his acting career. But after studying method acting at the New School, he soon began getting roles on television and made a hit as the title character in Paddy Chayefsky's play Marty. (He later lost the role to Ernest Borgnine for the film version.) Once in Hollywood, Steiger became a popular character actor featured in villainous roles. By the late 1950s, he was known as "one of the five most exciting actors in Hollywood," according to the author. Since then he has gone on to make fine films (such as The Longest Day), as well as a full ledger of second raters (such as Unholy Wife). Hutchinson (Niven's Hollywood), a film critic based in London, has been friends with Steiger for 30 years, and his affection for his subject shows through on every page. Unfortunately, his book, which relies heavily on personal anecdotes, film review quotations and biographies of other stars, is neither particularly insightful nor a comprehensive critical study. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Of late, Rod Steiger has been seen in supporting parts, appearing as a crime kingpin in The Specialist (1994) and an army general in Mars Attacks (1997). Upon examining his career, however, we realize that Steiger has always been a character actor, whether as Marlon Brando's brother in On the Waterfront (1954), Poor Jud in Oklahoma! (1955), or in leading roles in Run of the Arrow (1957), Al Capone (1959), The Pawnbroker (1965), or In the Heat of the Night (Best Actor Academy Award, 1967). Like Humphrey Bogart, Walter Matthau, and Steve McQueen, the burly, intense Steiger has proven that stardom and longevity depend on talent and charisma, not looks. A close friend of Steiger, Hutchinson (Horror and Fantasy in the Cinema) doesn't allow this mutual admiration society to color unduly his diagnosis of Steiger's career or personal life. He provides revealing glimpses of the Actor's Studio, live TV, and international filmmaking and includes several Steiger poems and a 1992 Guardian interview. This is a worthy biography of an actor who, to some degree, has fallen through the cracks of the filmgoer's consciousness.DKim Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, Malvern, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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This review is from: Rod Steiger: Memoirs of a Friendship (Hardcover)
Ever since seeing Rod Steiger in "Dr. Zhivago" and "Oklahoma", I've wondered what he was really like. Now that I'm in the midst of collaborating on a book about the 1940s-1950s era of live television, Mr. Steiger is again brought to mind. How skillfully he had played the title role in "Marty"! So I got Tom Hutchinson's biography of his friend Rod Steiger and sat down to read. It was difficult to put the book down. This tome gives us the true story of an acting legend. How do I know? Because not only was Mr. Hutchinson a close friend of Mr. Steiger's, but Steiger himself also contributed his memories and thoughts to the book, perhaps as a favor to his dear friend. It answers questions: Why did Steiger not sign with any particular studio? Was he difficult to work with? Why was he not in the movie version of "Marty"? Which was his favorite type of role? What was really important to him? Was he a good husband and father? What was it like for him to suffer such a serious bout of depression? A bonus feature of this book is a chapter containing poetry that Steiger had written, plus a National Film Theatre interview he did before an appreciative audience. Author Tom Hutchinson did a marvelous job of showing us the real Rod Steiger and enabling us to like what we see.
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