The veteran actor favorites such as "McHale's Navy," "Marty" and "The Poseidon Adventure" seems to punctuate every story with at least a little chuckle, and more often than not, a loud and long laugh.
Ernest Borgnine was in his Hollywood Hills home recently, recounting a call from Screen Actors Guild president Ken Howard, who told him that he receive the group's lifetime achievement award, to be presents on the SAG Awards tonight at 6 on TNT (Comcast Channel 40) and TBS (Comcast Channel 18).
Ken Howard said, we have nominated you. Would you accept the fact that you are to be the winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award! Borgnine said. "And I said, 'But am I worth it! Really It comes down to that. What have I done, really? But, I'm not going to turn it down.
Ernest was career military, well on his way to a Navy pension when he came home after 2nd World war .
I knew one thing, Ernest said, I didn't want to go to work in a factory. His mother suggested he try acting.
She said, you always like getting in front of people and making a fool of yourself, why don't you give it a try?' he recalled. I was sitting at the kitchen table.
It sounds so crazy. And 10 years later, I had Grace Kelly handing me an Academy Award. Ernest says, as if still in disbelief, after all these years.
After success, he moved to Los Angeles and found a breakout role in "From Here to Eternity" (1953). Ernest then landed the lead as a lonely butcher in 1955's "Marty," for which he earned the best actor Oscar. That made him a star, and he's been working steadily ever since, with memorable roles in the film and TV series "McHale's Navy," "The Wild Bunch" and "The Poseidon Adventure." At 94, he's still working, providing the voice of Mermaid Man in "SpongeBob SquarePants" and making a cameo in last year's action hit "Red." Ernest said his philosophy about acting came from his early days struggling in New York, when he spotted a sign on a chestnut vendor's cart, It said, 'I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to keep my nuts warm.
Ernest Borgnine said, I always found out one thing, If you laugh, people laugh with you. But if you just sit there, nothing, people go, 'What's the matter with him?' So, laugh, man.
