Sandyhaired tall and burly George Harris Kennedy Jr was born in New York City to Helen A Kieselbach a ballet dancer and George Harris Kennedy an orchestra leader and musician He had German Irish and English ancestry A World War II veteran Kennedy at one stage in his career cornered the market at playing tough nononsense characters who were either quite crooked or possessed hearts of gold Kennedy notched up an impressive 200 appearances in both TV and film and was well respected within the Hollywood community He started out in TV westerns in the late 1950s and early 1960s Have Gun Will Travel 1957 Rawhide 1959 Maverick 1957 Colt 45 1957 among others before scoring minor roles in films including Lonely Are the Brave 1962 The Sons of Katie Elder 1965 and The Flight of the Phoenix 1965 The late 1960s was a very busy period for Kennedy and he was strongly in favor with casting agents appearing in Hurry Sundown 1967 The Dirty Dozen 1967 and scoring an Oscar win as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cool Hand Luke 1967 The disaster film boom of the 1970s was kind to Kennedy too and his talents were in demand for Airport1970 and the three subsequent sequels as a grizzled cop in Earthquake 1974 plus the buddyroad film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot 1974 as vicious bank robber Red Leary The 1980s saw Kennedy appear in a mishmash of roles playing various characters however Kennedy and Leslie Nielsen surprised everyone with their comedic talents in the hugely successful The Naked Gun From the Files of Police Squad 1988 and the two screen veterans hammed it up again in The Naked Gun 2½ The Smell of Fear 1991 plus Naked Gun 33 13 The Final Insult 1994 Kennedy remained busy in Hollywood and lent his distinctive voice to the animated Cats Dont Dance 1997 and the childrens action film Small Soldiers 1998 A Hollywood stalwart for nearly 50 years he is one of the most enjoyable actors to watch on screen His last role was in the film The Gambler 2014 as Mark Wahlbergs characters grandfather George Kennedy died on February 28 2016 in Middleton Idaho
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