Eli Wallach

 Eli Wallach, on acting with a Cinerama camera in "How the West Was Won" (1962): "I thought it was a regular movie. I arrived, I saw these, these- this monster with three magazines and three lenses... and then I was told, 'If you're gonna play a scene with someone, don't look directly at them, look off to the side. It'll look like you're looking at them.' Which gave the actor a strange sensation."

"I must say, though, for telling a story as vast as the West, the process they used at Cinerama gave you a feeling of what the undiscovered country was like."

For decades, Wallach won fans by bringing humanity and humor to roles that pitted him as a villain against titans such as Clint Eastwood and Steve McQueen. In 2010, Wallach received an honorary Oscar for a 60-year career. "As an actor I've played more bandits, thieves, warlords, molesters, and Mafioso than you could shake a stick at," the actor said as he accepted the award.

David Thomson, author of "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film," says Wallach was best at "sneering, sadistic, wicked roles — the things that he seemed to do very naturally," Thomson says on All Things Considered. "In a lot of his films, he did not shave," he said, adding that it was from a time when by not shaving you could "be almost any disreputable person from anywhere in the world."

"Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck."

Happy Birthday, Eli Wallach!