Emmy-Winning Stage and Film Veteran Jack Warden Dies at 85

Emmy Award-winning character actor Jack Warden, who was featured in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, has passed away at the age of 85.  He died of various ailments in a New York hospital.

"Everything gave out. Old age.  He really had turned downhill in the past month; heart and then kidney and then all kinds of stuff," said his business manager Sidney Pazoff.  The actor had been known for playing characters whose tough exteriors belied soft hearts.

Born as John H. Lebzelter on September 18, 1920 in Newark, New Jersey, Warden started off as professional boxer (under the name "Johnny Costello") and also worked as a bouncer and lifeguard before joining the Navy.  Dissatisfied with a military life at sea, he changed over to the Army.  Although he was injured during World War II (after having barely missed participating in the Normandy invasion due to a training wound), he recovered and decided to become an actor after reading a Clifford Odets play given to him by a fellow soldier.

After performing at Margo Jones' prestigious Dallas Alley Theatre, in the late '40s, he made his Broadway debut in a revival of Odets' Golden Boy.  He played Marco in the original Broadway production of A View from the Bridge (as well as Frank in Miller's companion piece A Memory of Two Mondays), and also appeared on Broadway in Lullaby, A Very Special Baby, the Bock and Harnick musical The Body Beautiful, The Man in the Glass Booth and Stages.

He appeared in over 150 films and TV shows.  He received Oscar nominations for his performances in Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait--both films in which Warren Beatty was involved.  Film credits included From Here to Eternity, Welcome to the Club, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, All the President's Men, Being There, Death on the Nile, The Great Muppet Caper, the Problem Child films, Toys, the Woody Allen films September, Bullets Over Broadway and Mighty Aphrodite, Bulworth and A Dog of Flanders.  He also played Juror #7 in the film version of 12 Angry Men.

His dozens of TV appearances included "The Twilight Zone," "77 Sunset Strip," "The Virginian" and "The Fugitive."  He received his Emmy Award for playing a football coach in the 1971 TV movie "Brian's Song."  He also received two nominations for "Crazy Like a Fox," in which he played a gruff private investigator.