Art Carney
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| Art Carney | |
 Art Carney as Ed Norton from The Honeymooners. |
|
| Birth name | Arthur William Matthew Carney |
| Born | November 4, 1918 Mount Vernon, New York |
| Died | November 9, 2003, age 85 Chester, Connecticut |
| Academy Awards | |
|---|---|
| Best Actor 1974 Harry and Tonto |
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Art Carney (November 4, 1918 – November 9, 2003) was an Academy Award winning American actor in film, stage, television, and radio.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Career
Born Arthur William Matthew Carney in Mount Vernon, New York, he gained lifelong fame for his portrayal of upstairs neighbor and sewer worker Ed Norton opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the popular television comedy show The Honeymooners and on the Gleason variety shows that preceded and followed the sitcom.
His portrayal of Ed Norton has had a big influence on pop culture,particularly by being the inspiration for the Hanna-Barbera characters Yogi Bear and Barney Rubble. Art Carney also had many screen and stage roles, including the portrayal on Broadway of Felix Unger in The Odd Couple (opposite Walter Matthau as Oscar). He was nominated for seven Emmy Awards and won six.
Beyond The Honeymooners (sketch and sitcom versions), Carney served as Gleason's sidekick and troupe member during many of the The Great One's years on television, which included several CBS runs of the Gleason variety show and some Honeymooners specials on ABC.
Carney had been a busy radio actor before being drafted as an infantryman during World War II. He participated in the Battle of Normandy and was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
In 1974 he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Harry Coombes, an elderly man going on the road with his pet cat, in Harry and Tonto. In 1978, Carney appeared in The Star Wars Holiday Special, a spin-off film to the Star Wars series. In it, he played Trader Saun Dann, a member of the Rebel Alliance who was a close friend of Chewbacca and his family. He also appeared in such films as W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, The Late Show, House Calls, Movie Movie and Going in Style. Later movies included The Muppets Take Manhattan, and the thriller Firestarter.
In 1981, he portrayed Harry Truman, an 84-year-old lodge owner in the half-fiction/half-reality based account of events leading to the eruption of Mount St. Helens, in the movie titled St. Helens.
Although he retired in the late 1980s, he returned in 1993 to make a small cameo in the Arnold Schwarzenegger flop Last Action Hero as Schwarzenegger's second cousin Frank who is tortured by the movie's main villain.
[edit] Death
Art Carney died of natural causes at his home in Westbrook, Connecticut, five days after his 85th birthday; he is survived by his widow and children. Carney is interred at Riverside Cemetery in Old Saybrook, Middlesex County, Connecticut. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.
[edit] Personal life
He was married three times to two women:
- Jean Myers, from 1940 to 1965; and again from 1980 to his death: 3 children
- Barbara Isaac from December 21, 1966 to 1977
[edit] Awards
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Jack Lemmon for Save the Tiger |
Academy Award for Best Actor 1974 for Harry and Tonto |
Succeeded by Jack Nicholson for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest |
[edit] External links
- Art Carney at the Internet Movie Database
- Art Carney at the TCM Movie Database
- Art Carney at the Internet Broadway Database
Categories: American film actors | American television actors | American radio actors | American stage actors | The Honeymooners | Best Actor Academy Award winners | Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) | Hollywood Walk of Fame | United States Army soldiers | American military personnel of World War II | Recipients of the Purple Heart medal | People from Westchester County, New York | Irish-American actors | 1918 births | 2003 deaths
