Eli Herschel Wallach ( ; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. Known for his character actor roles, his entertainment career spanned over six decades. He received a BAFTA Award, a Tony Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He also was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1988 and received the Academy Honorary Award in 2010.
Originally trained in stage acting, he garnered over 90 film credits. He and his wife Anne Jackson often appeared together on stage, eventually becoming a notable acting couple in American theater. Wallach initially studied method acting under Sanford Meisner and later became a founding member of the Actors Studio, where he studied under Lee Strasberg. He played a wide variety of roles throughout his career, primarily as a supporting actor. He won the Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actor in a Play for The Rose Tattoo (1951).
For his debut screen performance in Baby Doll (1956), he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe Award nomination. Among his other most famous roles are Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960), Guido in The Misfits (1961), Tuco ("The Ugly") in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Don Altobello in The Godfather Part III (1990). Other notable films include How the West Was Won (1962), Tough Guys (1986), The Two Jakes (1990), The Associate (1996), The Holiday (2006), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and The Ghost Writer (both 2010). He received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2007) and Nurse Jackie (2011).
Early life and education
Eli Herschel Wallach was born on December 7, 1915, at 156 Union Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a son of Polish Jewish immigrants Abraham and Bertha Wallach (née Schorr) from Przemyśl. He had a brother and two sisters. His parents owned Bertha's Candy Store. In a later interview, Wallach said that he learned to ride horses while in Texas, explaining that he liked Texas because "It opened my eyes to the word friendship... You could rely on people. If they gave you their word, that was it... It was an education."
Two years later he earned a master of arts degree in education from the City College of New York. He gained his first method acting experience at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City, where he studied under Sanford Meisner. There, according to Wallach, actors were forced to "unlearn" all their physical and vocal mannerisms, while traditional stage etiquette and "singsong" deliveries were "utterly excised" from his classroom.
Military service
Wallach's education was cut short when he was drafted into the United States Army in 1940. He served as a staff sergeant and medic in a military hospital in Hawaii and later was sent to Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Abilene, Texas, to train as a medical administrative officer. Commissioned as a second lieutenant, he was ordered to Casablanca. Later, when he was serving in France, a senior officer noticed his acting career and asked him to create a show for the patients. He and his unit wrote a play called Is This the Army?, which was inspired by Irving Berlin's This Is the Army. In the comedy, Wallach and the other actors mocked Axis dictators, with Wallach portraying Adolf Hitler. Wallach was discharged as a captain following the war's end in 1945. Wallach became Marilyn Monroe's first new friend when she became a student at the Actors Studio, once insisting on watching him perform in The Teahouse of the August Moon from the backstage wings, simply to see up close how experienced actors perform a two-hour play. She also became friends with his wife, Anne Jackson, also studying at the Studio, and would visit the couple at their home and sometimes babysit their new child.
In 1945 Wallach made his Broadway debut and he won a Tony Award in 1951 for his performance alongside Maureen Stapleton in the Tennessee Williams play The Rose Tattoo. His other theater credits include Mister Roberts, The Teahouse of the August Moon, Camino Real, Major Barbara (in which director Charles Laughton discouraged Wallach's established method acting style), He exposed Americans to the work of playwright Eugène Ionesco in plays including The Chairs and The Lesson in 1958, and in 1961 Rhinoceros opposite Zero Mostel.
thumb|upright|With [[Maureen Stapleton in The Rose Tattoo (1951)]]
The stage was where Wallach focused his early career. From 1945 to 1950 he and his wife, Anne Jackson, worked together acting in various plays by Tennessee Williams. The five years following, he continued only working on stage, not becoming involved in film work until 1956. During those years, however, they were generally having a hard time making ends meet. He recalls they were getting along on unemployment insurance and living in a one-room, $35 a month apartment on lower Fifth Avenue in the Village. "Acting is the most alive thing I can do, and the most joyous", he stated. When he did gravitate toward accepting parts in films, he did so to "help pay the bills", he said, adding, "for actors, movies are a means to an end." Baby Doll was controversial because of its underlying sexual theme. Director Elia Kazan however, set explicit limits on Wallach's scenes, telling him not to actually seduce Carroll Baker, but instead to create an unfulfilled erotic tension. Kazan later explained his reasoning:
Wallach went on to a prolific career as "one of the greatest 'character actors' ever to appear on stage and screen", notes Turner Classic Movies, The Guardian has written that "Wallach was made for character acting", and includes movie clips from some of his most memorable roles in a tribute to him.
In 1961, Wallach co-starred with Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift and Clark Gable in The Misfits, Monroe's and Gable's last film before their deaths. Wallach never learned why he was cast in the film, although he suspected that Monroe had something to do with it.
Wallach and Eastwood became friends during the filming of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and he recalled their off-work time together: "Clint was the tall, silent type. He's the kind where you open up and do all the talking. He smiles and nods and stores it all away in that wonderful calculator of a brain." In 2003 Wallach acted in Mystic River, produced and directed by Eastwood, who once said "working with Eli Wallach has been one of the great pleasures of my life."
A pivotal moment in Wallach's career came in 1953, when he, along with Frank Sinatra and Harvey Lembeck, tried out for the role of Maggio in the film From Here to Eternity. Sinatra biographer Kitty Kelly notes that while Sinatra's test was good, it had none of the "consummate acting ability" of Wallach. Producer Harry Cohn and director Fred Zinnemann were "dazzled" by Wallach's screen test and wanted him to play the part. However, Wallach had previously been offered an important role in another Tennessee Williams play, Camino Real, to be directed by Elia Kazan, and turned down the movie role. Wallach said that when he learned that the play had finally received financing, he "grabbed" the opportunity: "It was a remarkable piece of writing by the leading playwright in America and it was going to be directed by the country's best. There really wasn't much of a choice for me." The film, however, went on to win eight Academy Awards, including one for Sinatra, which revived his career. Wallach recalled afterwards, "Whenever Sinatra saw me, he'd say, 'Hello, you crazy actor!'" In 2006 Wallach appeared on NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, playing a former writer who was blacklisted in the 1950s. His character was a writer on The Philco Comedy Hour, a show that aired on a fictional NBS network. This is a reference to The Philco Television Playhouse, in several episodes of which Wallach actually appeared in 1955. Wallach earned a 2007 Emmy nomination for his work on the show.
thumb|upright|right|Wallach at the 2010 TCM Classic Film Festival
During the filming of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Wallach nearly died three times. Once, he accidentally drank a bottle of acid which was placed next to his pop bottle; another time was in a scene where he was about to be hanged, someone fired a pistol which caused the horse underneath him to bolt and run while Wallach's hands were still tied behind his back; in a different scene with him lying on a railroad track, he was close to being decapitated by steps jutting out from the train.
Wallach appeared as DC Comics' supervillain Mr. Freeze in the 1960s Batman television series. He said that he received more fan mail about his role as Mr. Freeze than for all his other roles combined. He played Gus Farber in the television miniseries Seventh Avenue in 1977, and 10 years later, at the age of 71, he starred alongside Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven episode "A Father's Faith". Three years later, he played aging mob boss Don Altobello in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III. Eli Wallach was an actor who guest-starred on Law & Order in the episode "The Working Stiff" as Simon Vilanis in 1991.
On November 13, 2010, at the age of 94, Wallach received an Academy Honorary Award for his contribution to the film industry from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A few years prior to that event, Kate Winslet told another audience that Wallach, with whom she acted in The Holiday in 2006, was one of the "most charismatic men" she'd met, and her "very own sexiest man alive."
Between 1984 and 1997, he also performed voiceovers in a series of television commercials for the Toyota Pickup.
Personal life
Wallach was married to actress Anne Jackson, with whom he frequently shared the screen, from March 5, 1948, until his death on June 24, 2014. They had three children: Peter, Katherine and Roberta.
In 2008, Wallach lost sight in his left eye due to a stroke.
His niece is historian Joan Wallach Scott (daughter of his brother Sam). A.O. Scott, a film critic for The New York Times, is his great-nephew.
Death
Wallach died on June 24, 2014, of natural causes at the age of 98. His body was cremated.
Filmography
Selected filmography:
Awards and nominations
{|class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Award
! Category
! Nominated work
! Result
! Ref.
|-
| 2010
| Academy Awards
| Academy Honorary Award
|
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1956
| British Academy Film Awards
| Most Promising Newcomer to Film
| Baby Doll
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1993
| rowspan="2"| Drama Desk Awards
| Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
| The Price
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1998
| Outstanding Actor in a Play
| Visiting Mr. Green
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1957
| The Drama League
| Distinguished Performance Award
| Major Barbara
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 2001
| Golden Boot Awards
|
|
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1956
| Golden Globe Awards
| Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
| Baby Doll
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1974
| Grammy Awards
| Best Recording for Children
| Eli Wallach Reads Isaac Bashevis Singer
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 2006
| National Board of Review Awards
| Career Achievement Award
|
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 2004
| Newport International Film Festival
| Best Actor
| King of the Corner
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1968
| Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Drama
| CBS Playhouse
|
|-
| 1987
| Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special
| Something in Common
|
|-
| 2007
| Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
| Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
|
|-
| 2011
| Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
| Nurse Jackie
|
|-
| 2002
| Taormina Film Fest
| Sergio Leone Award
|
|
| align="center"|
|-
| 1951
| Tony Awards
| Best Supporting or Featured Actor in a Play
|
| align="center"|
|}
References
External links
- Eli Wallach at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach Papers at the Harry Ransom Center