One of my earlier memories of Durning (unless I'm misremembering) was a 70s TV mini-series called "The Captains and the Kings" or something like that. Every time I saw him in anything, that would be my first frame of reference.
Charles Durning, king of character actors, dies in NYCCharles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge.
His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel to the pope to Dustin Hoffman's would-be suitor in "Tootsie."
Durning, who died Monday at age 89 in New York, got his start as an usher at a burlesque theater in Buffalo, N.Y. When one of the comedians showed up too drunk to go on, Durning took his place. He would recall years later that he was hooked as soon as heard the audience laughing.
He told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had no plans to stop working. "They're going to carry me out, if I go," he said....