Ben Gazzara

He was born on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City to Antonio Gazzara and Angela Cusumano Gazzara, both Italian immigrants. They often spoke Italian at home. He grew up in a building at 29th Street and 1st Avenue, where he slept on the fire escape in summer and occasionally heard screams from the patients at the Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in New York City.

He was born Biagio Anthony Gazzara on August 28, 1930, in New York City. The son of a Sicilian immigrant laborer, he grew up on New York's tough Lower East Side. After seeing Laurette Taylor in "The Glass Menagerie," Gazzara decided he wanted to become an actor. He studied engineering (unhappily) but quit after receiving an acting scholarship (he worked under well-known coach Erwin Piscator). Gazzara then joined the Actors Studio, where a group of students improvised a play from Calder Willingham's novel End as a Man.

Ben Gazzara's screen career began with two critically acclaimed roles as heavies in the late 1950s.

He studied drama at the Dramatic Workshop in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. He studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York City in 1951.

The tale of a brutal southern military academy reached Broadway slightly changed in 1953 but with Gazzara still in the principal role.

It was a star making part (he won a Theatre World award) and he then played leads in the original productions of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1955) and "A Hatful of Rain" (1955) (he was nominated for a Tony).

Bigger names Paul Newman and Don Murray played those last two roles on the big screen but Gazzara made his movie debut in The Strange One (1957) the film version of "End as a Man. " The film was a critical but not commercial success.

His next role was as the defendant in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) which was a big hit.

He turned to television in the 1960s but made a big screen comeback with roles in three John Cassavetes films in the 1970s.

Gazzara followed this with an Italian venture co-starring Anna Magnani, The Passionate Thief (1960), two Hollywood films The Young Doctors (1961) and Convicts 4 (1962) and then another Italian film Conquered City (1962). None of these did much for his career, and he turned to television.

He appeared in the successful series Arrest and Trial (1963) and Run for Your Life (1965).

In between, he made A Rage to Live (1965), a film version of John O'Hara's novel.

He returned to films in The Bridge at Remagen (1969) and with a cameo appearance in If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969).

His buddy in the cameo was John Cassavetes, who directed and co-starred with him in Husbands (1970), a critical success.

Gazzara's other films in the 1970s were undistinguished apart from the sprawling Voyage of the Damned (1976) and a rare leading role in director Peter Bogdanovich's Saint Jack (1979).

Gazzara made two more well-received films with his good friend Cassavetes: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) and Opening Night (1977).

Bloodline (1979) and They All Laughed (1981) (also directed by Bogdanovich) were only notable because of Gazzara's off-screen relationship with co-star Audrey Hepburn (ironically, Gazzara had declined to make his screen debut in War and Peace (1956) starring Hepburn).

The 1980s and 1990s saw Gazzara work more frequently than ever before in character parts. If he never became the leading man his early films and stage work promised, he had a career notable for its longevity.

Other big-screen roles in the 1980s were scarce apart from Road House (1989), a Patrick Swayze vehicle that Gazzara believed out of all his films had been the most repeated on television.

Storie di ordinaria follia (1981) was another lead for Gazzara, but it received a mixed critical reception.

He is survived by his daughter, Elizabeth Gazzara, from his second marriage to Janice Rule; his third wife, Elke Gazzara (Elke Stuckmann) (married since 1982); his adopted daughter, DanJa-record-producer">DanJa Gazzara, from Elke's previous marriage; and brother, Anthony Gazzara.

The February 16, 1983, edition of Variety, in the "Production in Italy" section, reports the film "Boogie Woogie" directed by Andrea Frezza, starring Ben Gazzara and Treat Williams, was to being filming in Italy in March 1983. Lack of funding prohibited completion of the film.

He worked much on the small screen, including the groundbreaking television movie An Early Frost (1985), playing the father of an AIDS victim.

Claimed that of all of the movies in which he has ever appeared in, Road House (1989) is the most frequently repeated on television.

The 1990s saw Gazzara working like never before, appearing in 38 films.

Most were for free-to-air television or cable but he also worked on the big screen in The Spanish Prisoner (1997), The Big Lebowski (1998), Happiness (1998) and Summer of Sam (1999).

Diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999. He lost more than 40 pounds during treatment.

Release of his autobiography, "In the Moment: My Life as an Actor". [2000]

Appearing on Broadway in a revival of Clifford Odets' "Awake and Sing". [April 2006]

He and his Road House costar Patrick Swayze both died from pancreatic cancer. Swayze in 2009, and Gazzara in 2012.

Died on the anniversary of the death of his close friend John Cassavetes, on February 3, 2012.