Burt Young, a stocky actor from Queens who became known for playing gruff characters in films like “Chinatown,” “Once Upon a Time in America,” and “Rocky,” for which he received an Oscar nomination, passed away on October 8 in Los Angeles. He was 83. His daughter, Anne Morea Steingieser, has verified his passing.
Mr. Young, who has a bulldog physique and a morose expression, has more than 160 acting credits to his name. He frequently took on the roles of gangster bosses, savvy detectives, and disheveled laborers. He was no lightweight even when cast in villainous roles.
Mr. Young’s work was nuanced despite his experience as a Marine and a professional boxer. Lee Strasberg, an acting mentor of Mr. Young’s, reportedly referred to him as a “library of emotions.” Sam Peckinpah, another Hollywood tough man, was a good match for his no-nonsense style, and he directed him in two films, “The Killer Elite” (1975) with James Caan and “Convoy” (1978) with Kris Kristofferson and Ali MacGraw.
His daughter remarked in a phone conversation, “Both were mavericks and outlaws, with a deep respect for art.” They communicated effectively because of the openness and sincerity that Peckinpah insisted upon. He would not stand for any pretense.
Mr. Young was a familiar face on television shows like “M*A*S*H” and in films like “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” (1971) and “Cinderella Liberty” (1973), a drama about a sailor (James Caan) who falls in love with a prostitute (Marsha Mason).
As a cuckolded Los Angeles fisherman who becomes wrapped up in a story of incest and murder in Roman Polanski’s neo-noir classic “Chinatown” (1974), he stole the show in a brief but stunning performance.
Two years later, with “Rocky,” the story of an underdog club fighter (Sylvester Stallone) who receives an unexpected match against heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), he finally broke through. Mr. Young portrayed the volatile role of Rocky’s butcher buddy Paulie, who also happened to be the brother of Rocky’s eventual lover Adrian (Talia Shire).
Mr. Young often claimed that he was a larger figure in Hollywood before “Rocky” was made, even though Mr. Stallone (who also created the screenplay) would become famous thanks to the film. “I was the only actor that didn’t audition in the first ‘Rocky,'” he told a cultural website in an interview in 2017. “I also received the highest bid for it.”
It was at the studio’s cafeteria that Mr. Young first met Mr. Stallone. To paraphrase, “He kneels down next to me,” he recounted. ‘Mr. Young, I’m Sylvester Stallone,’ he introduces himself. After saying, “I wrote Rocky,” Mr. Young said, “You’ve got to do it, please.”
“He’s trying to twist my arm,” Mr. Young said. Directed by John G. Avildsen, the picture was a grim and frequently depressing human drama that stood in stark contrast to the more comical sequels in which Mr. Young also participated.
“It really wasn’t a fighting story, it was a love story, about someone standing up,” he stated of the first film in a 2006 interview with Bright Lights Film Journal. It’s not about victory; it’s about taking a stand. The iconic “Rocky” movie of the 1970s.
Mr. Young was nominated for best supporting actor, and the film ended up winning three Academy Awards, including best picture. “I made him a rough guy with a sensitivity,” Mr. Young later said of Paulie. “He’s really a marshmallow, even though he yells a lot.”
The birth name of Burt Young is disputed, however he was born on April 30, 1940, in Queens, New York. His dad worked as an iceman, then a sheet metal worker, and then he became a high school shop instructor and dean. Mr. Young’s upbringing in a Corona, Queens, working-class area exposed him to street life at an early age.
His words can be found in the preface of “Corona: The Early Years,” (2015) by Jason D. Antos and Constantine E. Theodosiou. “My dad, trying to make me a gentler kid, sent me to Bryant High School in Astoria, away from my Corona pals,” he wrote.
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“Soon, however, I was expelled, and I transferred to St. Ann’s Academy in Manhattan, where I was expelled after only a single semester,” he added. “Finally, it was the Marines when I lied about my age and my dad lied to get me in when I was 16.”
He got his start in the sport in the Marine Corps and went on to have a brief but successful professional career under the tutelage of Cus D’Amato, the same trainer and management who oversaw the careers of Floyd Patterson and Mike Tyson. His record in the ring was somewhere around 17-1 (his own claims differed), and he eventually decided to retire.
He fell in love with a bartender’s daughter in his late 20s while he was laying carpets and doing other odd jobs because she told him she wanted to pursue acting with Lee Strasberg. “I didn’t know who Lee Strasberg was,” he said to Bright Lights. As the saying goes, “I thought it was a girl.”
They spent two years learning under method acting’s progenitor, Lee Strasberg, after Mr. Young arranged a meeting between the two of them. “Acting had everything I was fishing for,” he reflected. Up until that point in my life, I had always relied on stress to keep me standing. What Lee gave me most was a chance to unwind.
Among his many other film credits are the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield comedy “Back to School” and the 1989 horror thriller “Last Exit to Brooklyn,” an adaptation of the controversial 1964 novel by Hubert Selby Jr. about lost souls from the bottom of midcentury Brooklyn.
In addition to starring in and writing “Uncle Joe Shannon” (1978), about a jazz trumpeter whose life falls apart before he finds forgiveness, Mr. Young also played the lead role. Mr. Young is survived by his daughter, Robert (his brother), and their grandchild. Gloria, his wife, passed away in 1974.
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