George Kennedy

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This article is about the actor. For the sports promoter, see George Kennedy (sports promoter).

George Kennedy
in Charade (1963)
Born	February 18, 1925 (age 82) New York, New York
Notable roles	Cool Hand Luke (1967) Airport (1970)

George Harris Kennedy, Jr.^[1] (born February 18, 1925) is an Academy-Award winning American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television productions. He is widely familiar as Joe Patroni in the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s, or more recently as Captain Ed Hocken from the Naked Gun trilogy.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Early life
- 1.2 Career
2 Selected filmography
3 Footnotes
4 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Kennedy was born in New York City, New York into a show business family; his father, George Harris Kennedy, an orchestra leader, died when Kennedy was four years old. He was raised by his mother, Helen A. Kieselbach, a ballet dancer.^[1]^[2] He made his stage debut at the age of two, later becoming a radio performer. Kennedy put aside show business during World War II and spent sixteen years in the United States Army, seeing combat and working in the Armed Forces radio. After retiring from the military (reportedly because of a back injury), Kennedy found his way back to the entertainment industry.

[edit] Career

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Kennedy became a technical advisor for the television series Sergeant Bilko, where his acting career began with a few one line parts. Kennedy began his film career in 1961 in The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Cool Hand Luke (1967). Kennedy starred in the 1975 revenge thriller, The 'Human' Factor, about an American NATO employee living in Naples whose entire family are executed by terrorists.

On television, Kennedy played Carter McKay in the CBS prime time serial Dallas (1978-1991). He starred in the series from 1988-1991.

Kennedy resides in Eagle, Idaho. He is married to Joan McCarthy and has a daughter, Shaunna, and a granddaughter, Taylor.^[3]

[edit] Selected filmography

The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1961)
Lonely are the Brave (1962)
McHale's Navy (1964)
Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Shenandoah (1965)
The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Bandolero! (1968)
Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969)
...tick...tick...tick... (1970)
Airport (1970)
Lost Horizon (1973)
Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973)
Airport 1975 (1974)
The Blue Knight (1975 TV series)
Earthquake (1974)
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
The Eiger Sanction (1975)
The 'Human' Factor (1975)
Airport '77 (1977)
The Concorde: Airport '79 (1979)
Death Ship (1980)
Savage Dawn (1985)
The Delta Force (1986)
Creepshow 2 (1987)
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
Demonwarp (1988)
The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991)
The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994)
Bayou Ghost (1997)
Small Soldiers (1998)
The Young And The Restless (2003)
Truce (2004)

Preceded by Walter Matthau for The Fortune Cookie	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor 1967 for Cool Hand Luke	Succeeded by Jack Albertson for The Subject Was Roses