Trivia of Rod Steiger

 Trivia of Rod Steiger (14 April 1925 - 9 July 2002)

*During his childhood, Steiger became known as "The Rock" refering his considerable strength and bulk.Despite being mocked over his mother's alcoholism, he was a popular figure at school and an able softball player.He displayed an interest in writing poetry and acting during his adolescent years, and appeared in several school plays while at West Side High School in Newark.

*He enlisted on May 1942 to US Naval Training Station in Newport, Rhode Island. He joined the newly commissioned USS Taussig (DD-746) on May 20, 1944.While serving as a torpedoman on destroyers, he saw action in the South Pacific, including the Battle of Iwo Jima.His experiences during the war haunted him for the rest of his life, particularly the loss of Americans during the Battle of Iwo Jima, as well as the sinking of vessels by the Taussig which were known to have women and children aboard.

*One of the main reasons he wanted to be an actor was to regain public respect for his family name, which had so humiliated him during childhood.He began pursuing a career as a character actor rather than as a leading man.Began his acting career with television roles in 1947, Steiger made his film debut in Fred Zinnemann's Teresa in 1951, that also Pier Angeli's Hollywood movie debut.

*He accepted the role of Charley "The Gent" Malloy in the film On the Water Front (1954). His taxi scene with Marlon Brando later became part of film history.Behind the scene, most of the solo shots of Steiger during that famous taxicab scene were done after Marlon Brando had left for the day. Brando had it in his contract that he could finish shooting before the normal quitting time so that he could make his daily session with his psychiatrist. Steiger was deeply hurt and annoyed at Brando's rudeness and lack of courtesy to a fellow actor, as it was customary, in a two-shot, for an actor in close-up to be fed his lines by the other actor or for the other actor to just be there so the first actor would have him him or her to play to. Steiger used his negative emotions to enhance his performance, and though he paid tribute to Brando as a great actor, he personally loathed him thereafter. Director Elia Kazan stood in for Brando in the back of the cab so Steiger would have someone to emote to.

*Steiger played Jud Fry in the film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! (1955), in which he performed his own singing. Steiger portrayed a disturbed, emotionally isolated version of Jud, which television channel Turner Classic Movies (TCM) believed brought a "complexity to the character that went far beyond the stock musical villain".Steiger observed that James Dean, who auditioned for the role that went to Gordon MacRae, was a "nice kid absorbed by his own ego, so much so that it was destroying him", which he thought led to his death. Dean reportedly gave Steiger his prized copy of Ernest Hemingway's book Death and had underlined every appearance of the word "death".

*He was the first person to win the best actor BAFTA two years in a row and the Oscar in the second year.For The Pawnbroker (1964) and In the Heat of the Night (1967).

*He won the role of Viktor Komarovsky, a Russian politician and "villainous opportunist in Doctor Zhivago (1965) after two other actors turned the role down (Marlon Brando and James Mason).He was one of only two Americans in the cast, was initially apprehensive about working with such great British actors as Ralph Richardson and Alec Guiness.