Ben Gazzara, character actor, dies
NEW YORK — Ben Gazzara, whose powerful dramatic performances brought an intensity to a variety of roles and made him a memorable presence in films, on television and on Broadway in the original “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” has died at age 81.
Longtime family friend Suzanne Mados said Gazzara died Friday in Manhattan after being in hospice care with cancer.
Gazzara was a proponent of method acting, in which the performer attempts to take on the thoughts and emotions of the character he’s playing, and it helped him achieve stardom early in his career with two stirring Broadway performances.
In 1955, he originated the role of Brick Pollitt, the disturbed alcoholic son and failed football star in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
He left the show after only seven months to take on an equally challenging role, Johnny Pope, the drug addict in “A Hatful of Rain.” It earned him his first of three Tony Award nominations.
In 1965, he moved on to TV stardom in “Run for Your Life,” a drama about a workaholic lawyer who, diagnosed with a terminal illness, quits his job and embarks on a globe-trotting attempt to squeeze a lifetime of adventures into the one or two years he has left.
