George C. Scott

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Academy Awards
George C. Scott
George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Birth name	George Campbell Scott
Born	October 18, 1927 Wise, Virginia, USA
Died	September 23, 1999 (aged 71) Westlake Village, California, USA

Best Actor 1970 Patton

George Campbell Scott (October 18, 1927 – September 23, 1999) was a stage and Academy Award-winning actor, director, and producer. He was best known for the dramatic portrayal of General George S. Patton Jr. in his Best Actor role of Patton as well as for his flamboyant portrayal of General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

1 Early life
2 Broadway and Film
3 Private life
4 Filmography
5 External links

[edit] Early life

Scott was born in Wise, Virginia to George Dewey Scott (1902-1987) and Helena Agnes Scott (1904-1935), the only son and younger of their two children. His mother died just before his eighth birthday, and he was raised by his father, an executive at the Buick Motor Company.

As a young man, Scott's original ambition was to be a writer like his idol, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and while in High School he wrote many short stories, none of which were ever published. As an adult he tried on many occasions to write a novel but was never able to complete one to his satisfaction. When asked by an interviewer in later life which contemporary novelists he admired, he replied, "I stopped reading novels when I stopped trying to write them."

Scott joined the U.S. Marine Corps enlisting from 1945 until 1949, and was assigned to the prestigious 8th and I Barracks in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, he served as a ceremonial guard at Arlington National Cemetery and he taught English literature and radio speaking/writing at the Marine Corps Institute. Scott later said that his duties at Arlington led to his drinking.

After serving his four-year hitch in the Marines, Scott enrolled in the University of Missouri where he majored in journalism and then became interested in drama; he left college after a year to pursue acting.

[edit] Broadway and Film

Scott began his acting career on Broadway, and achieved critical acclaim portraying the prosecutor in The Andersonville Trial by Saul Levitt. This was based on the military trial of the commandant of the infamous Civil War prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia. Scott's performance earned him a mention in Time magazine as a rising young actor of great intensity. In 1970 Scott directed a highly acclaimed television version of this same play. It starred William Shatner, Richard Basehart and Jack Cassidy who was nominated for an Emmy award for his performance as the defense lawyer in this production.

In 1963, Scott was top billed in the critically acclaimed CBS hour-long drama East Side, West Side; he and co-star Cicely Tyson played urban social workers. Perhaps too gritty and stark for 1963, the show lasted one season.

Scott also won an Obie Award for his performance as Richard III for the New York Shakespeare Festival, a performance one critic said was the "angriest" Richard III of all time.

Scott won wide public recognition in the film, Anatomy of a Murder, in which he played a wily prosecutor opposite Jimmy Stewart as the defense attorney. Scott was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor; when he was notified of the nomination, he called the Academy Awards a "meat parade" or "meat race". He said, "Actors are the world's oldest, underprivileged minority - looked upon as nothing but buffoons, one step above thieves and charlatans. These award ceremonies simply compound the image for me."

Scott's favorite film actress was Bette Davis, whom he called "my bloody idol."

Scott's most famous early role was in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, where he played the part of General "Buck" Turgidson. It is revealed on the DVD documentary that after having shot many takes of any given scene, Stanley Kubrick would frequently asked Scott to redo it in an "over the top" fashion. Kubrick would then proceed to use this take in the final cut, for which Scott purportedly resented him. However, Kubrick did earn Scott's respect on this film, since by that time, Scott was an accomplished chess player. The cast and crew noted they would often play chess between takes, and Kubrick was the only person who could routinely beat Scott.

Scott's portrayal of the swaggering and controversial General Patton in the 1970 film Patton has become, to many, his most iconic performance. Scott had researched extensively for the role, studying films of the general and talking to those who knew him. Having declined an Academy Award nomination for his appearance in the 1961 film, The Hustler, Scott returned his Oscar for Patton, stating in a letter to the Academy that he didn't feel himself to be in competition with other actors. However, also regarding this second rejection of the Academy Award, Scott famously said elsewhere, "The whole thing is a goddam meat parade. I don't want any part of it."[1] In the mid-80s, Scott reprised his role as Patton for a television movie. At the time that sequel was aired, Scott mentioned in a TV Guide interview that he had verbally told the Academy to donate his Oscar to the Patton Museum; since the instructions were never put in writing, it was never delivered.

In 1971 Scott gave two more critically acclaimed performances, as a de facto Sherlock Holmes in They Might Be Giants, and as an alcoholic doctor in the black comedy The Hospital. Despite his repeated snubbing of the Academy, Scott was again nominated for Best Actor for the latter role. Scott excelled on television that year as well, appearing in an adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price, an installment of the Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology. Scott was nominated for, and won, an Emmy Award for his role, which he accepted. Scott's reasoning for keeping an Emmy after rejecting an Oscar was believed to be due to the fact that the Emmy Award winners were chosen by blue-ribbon panels of experts, while Academy Award winners were chosen by the entire Academy membership.

Scott had a reputation for being moody and mercurial while on the set. "There is no question you get pumped up by the recognition," he once said, "Then a self-loathing sets in when you realise you're enjoying it." He said he'd seen a psychiatrist four times, "I kept laughing. I couldn't get serious. If it helps you, it helps you. If standing on your head on the roof helps you, it helps you - if you think so."

There is a famous anecdote that one of his stage co-stars, Maureen Stapleton, told the director of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite: "I don't know what to do, I am scared of him." The director, Mike Nichols, replied, "My dear, everyone is scared of George C. Scott!" The actor also played the starring role in the 1980 horror film The Changeling, with Barry Morse, where Scott plays a newly widowed music teacher who retreats into an old mansion only to find out that it is haunted by the ghost of a child who was murdered decades ago during the First World War.[2]

In 1984, Scott was cast in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in a television adaptation of A Christmas Carol. At the time critics and the public alike praised his performance. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role. Some have said his Scrooge ranks alongside Alastair Sim's portrayal. This version is available on DVD.

In 1990, he voiced the villain Smoke in the TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, where his character was alongside popular cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny. During that same year, he voice acted the villain Percival McLeach in the 1990 Disney film, The Rescuers Down Under.

[edit] Private life

Scott was married five times:

1) Carolyn Hughes (1951–1955) (two daughters, Michelle and Victoria)
2) Patricia Reed (1955–1960) (two children, Matthew, and actress Devon Scott who was born on November 29, 1958).
3) The Canadian-born actress Colleen Dewhurst, by whom he had two sons, writer Alexander Scott, and the actor Campbell Scott. Dewhurst nicknamed her husband "GS". (1960–1965)
4) He remarried Colleen Dewhurst on 4 July 1967, but divorced for a second time on 2 February 1972.
5) The American actress Trish Van Devere on September 4, 1972, with whom he starred in several films including the supernatural thriller The Changeling (1980). They were estranged at the time of his death.