Eli Wallach

One of the most respected actors in American performance, Eli Wallach's career never quite matched his long list of stage credits in terms of quality, but he had nevertheless contributed some memorable characters to film. Moviegoers knew him best for a pair of similar characters - the cruel Mexican bandit Calvera, whose raids on a poor village prompt the formation of "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), and as the scheming, scene-stealing Tuco in Sergio Leone's groundbreaking spaghetti Western, "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" (1967).

But Wallach's career stretched back a decade prior and continued on well into the 21st century, during which he played almost every ethnic type and moral stripe under the sun. While his record on the big screen remained spotty, Wallach thrived on television with an Emmy-winning performance in "The Poppy is a Flower" (ABC, 1966) and a campy turn as Mr. Freeze on "Batman" (ABC, 1966-68). Over the years, he remained under the radar while performing onstage or in lesser-known pictures, only to resurface in projects like the revival of "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1978), the acclaimed miniseries "The Executioner's Song" (NBC, 1982) and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather III" (1990), in which he had a memorable scene as a mobster who dies while eating poisoned cannoli.

Born Eli Herschel Wallach on Dec. 7, 1915 in Brooklyn, NY, he made his performing debut as part of an amateur production while still in high school. At some point in his early life, Wallach lost the sight in his right eye, the result of a hemorrhage (Wallach was vague about the date in his autobiography). After gaining a BA from the University of Texas in Austin and a Masters' degree in education from the City College of New York, Wallach earned a scholarship to New York's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse, where he first cut his teeth on the Method style of acting.

After graduation in 1940, he landed a smattering of minor stage roles before WWII intervened; he joined the Army in 1941 and served as a medical administrative officer, being dispatched to numerous points across the globe, including Hawaii, Casablanca and France. It was in the latter location that his superiors learned of his acting background and asked Wallach to mount a production to entertain the recuperating troops. With the assistance of other members of his company, Wallach wrote and performed "This is the Army?" a satirical revue in which he played Hitler, among other roles. It would be the first of many memorable villains Wallach would play during his long career.

After being discharged from the service, Wallach resumed his acting career and made his Broadway debut in 1945. He also joined the Actor's Studio, spending two seasons with the American Repertory Theater before blossoming into a major stage star in the early '50s - thanks to a pair of Tennessee Williams plays, "The Rose Tattoo" and "Camino Real." The former landed Wallach a Tony Award. The actor returned to the theater frequently over the next six decades in countless productions ranging from Eugene Ionesco's "Rhinoceros," "Teahouse of the August Moon," and "Mister Roberts."

Wallach's profile by the early 1960s was significant enough for him to share top billing with Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner in "The Magnificent Seven" and Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe (who babysat Wallach's daughter Roberta during the film's troubled shoot) in "The Misfits" (1961) - the fabled last film for both Monroe and Gable. He was also a frequent guest star on television, especially anthology series like "Playhouse 90" (CBS, 1956-1961) and "The Hallmark Hall of Fame" (CBS, 1951- ), for which he was a notable Dauphin opposite Julie Harris' Joan of Arc in "The Lark" (1957). He also made an amusing Mr. Freeze (one of three actors to play the character) on two episodes of the campy series, "Batman" (ABC, 1966-68).

By the mid-1960s, Wallach was a dependable character actor with a knack for foreign characters who often wielded a degree of swagger and occasional menace. In addition to the Mexican Calvera and the Italian Guido in "The Misfits," Wallach was a Greek kidnapper in the Disney film "The Moon-Spinners" (1965), an amorous Latin dictator on the make for American female president Polly Bergen in "Kisses for My President" (1964), and an Arab shah in "Genghis Khan" (1965). In 1967, Wallach traveled to Italy to film the third in a trilogy of operatically violent Westerns for director Sergio Leone; his performance as Tuco in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was arguably his best turn on screen; one that allowed him to work with his full and formidable acting palette.

Despite being nearly killed on three occasions during the making of the iconic film (due to faulty and lax production issues), Wallach acknowledged the movie's impact on his career on numerous occasions after its release. He even named his 2005 autobiography The Good, the Bad, and Me: In My Anecdotage and in 2003, he and Eastwood re-dubbed 18 minutes of footage that had been excised from the film before its 1967 release in America. Wallach also returned to Italy several times to appear in other "spaghetti Westerns," usually as variations on Tuco. Wallach was supposed to reunite with Leone for the film "Duck, You Sucker" (1973), but scheduling conflicts prevented this from happening (his role was later assumed by Rod Steiger).

Wallach remained as busy in the '70s and '80s as he did in the previous decade, though his roles were largely character parts and the quality frequently ranged from top Hollywood product to low-budget fare. Among his better films from the period were "Cinderella Liberty" (1973), in which he played a tough-as-nails Navy lifer; "Movie Movie" (1978), Stanley Donen's clever tribute to vintage Hollywood melodramas and musicals; John Huston's Bicentennial-themed short "Independence," in which he captured the intelligence and wry humor of Benjamin Franklin. Wallach also appeared in numerous TV movies, including the thriller "A Cold Night's Death" (1973), co-starring Robert Culp, about scientists losing their grip in the Arctic; the drama "Skokie" (1981) co-starring Danny Kaye, about Holocaust survivors facing neo-Nazis; and the thriller "The Executioner's Song" (1982), based on the Norman Mailer book about serial killer, Gary Gilmore.

As the 1980s wore on into the 1990s and the new millennium, Wallach continued to answer the call for character parts - long after many of his contemporaries had passed on. He was a near-sighted hit man in the limp Kirk Douglas-Burt Lancaster comedy, "Tough Guys" (1986), a psychologist testifying against a seemingly deranged call girl (Barbra Streisand) in "Nuts" (1987), the candy-loving Don Altobello in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather III" (1990), and Ben Stiller's sympathetic rabbi advisor in Edward Norton's wry comedy, "Keeping the Faith" (2000).

In 2003, he reunited with his friend and former co-star Clint Eastwood to play a cagey storeowner in "Mystic River" - for which he was uncredited. As Wallach entered his ninth decade, he did not appear to slow down in the least. He was a former blacklisted TV writer on an episode of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC, 2006-07) and enjoyed sizable roles in "The Hoax" (2006) - about Clifford Irving's bogus biography of Howard Hughes - and "The Holiday" (2006), in which he played a charming elderly screenwriter befriended by Kate Winslet in the romantic comedy. Wallach found himself back in play at the Emmy awards after a 20 year absence, earning a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his performance on "Studio 60." After voiceover roles in "Constantine's Sword" (2008) and "The Toe Tactic" (2009), Wallach returned to the small screen as a dying elderly man for an episode of "Nurse Jackie" (Showtime, 2009-15).

His performance earned the 94-year-old an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. His final appearance in a feature film came with a supporting role in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" (2010). Eli Wallach died at the age of 98 on June 24, 2014.