George Harris Kennedy, two times Golden Globes nominee, has died Saturday, February 27 2016.

His first  Globe nomination (for a supporting role) was for a performance that also earned him an Oscar, and established his place in Hollywood's A list : the bullying convict Dragline in Cool Hand Luke (1967). The lead, Paul Newman, was also nominated for the Globe and the Oscar, but lost both to Rod Steiger, the lead of In the Heat of the Night. In the movie Kennedy's Dragline challenges his fellow convict Luke (Paul Newman) to a boxing match. As the fight continues on and on, the massive [6 foot 4] Dragline knocks the plucky Luke down again and again, only to see him rise and keep fighting. But Dragline is not a one-dimensional “behind bars” convict/brute, and he ends up appreciating his adversary.“That’s my darlin’ Luke." Kennedy growls. "He grins like a baby, but he bites like a 'gator.”

It was the same mix that Kennedy exhibited in his long acting career.  He started with tough, rough, bad guy roles, and ended with a string of popular comedies. In between he played a parade of strong, tough good guys, one of which earned him his second Golden Globes nomination, for Airport, (1971) in which he was aviation expert Joe Patroni in what would be the first of the Airport sfranchise. The disaster movie received three other Globe nominations: best drama, Alfred Newman for the score and Maureen Stapleton for best supporting actress (which she won). Kennedy lost to John Mills in Ryan's Daughter.
 

Kennedy was destined to succeed in the wave of disaster movies that dominated the 1970s, heralded by the first Airport.  He was the only actor to appear in all four of the Airport pictures (1970, 1975, 1977 and 1979): Kennedy was perfect as the cigar-chomping troubleshooter Patroni, on whom everybody relies. “Who do ya think you’re talking to, some kid that fixes bicycles? I know every inch of the 707! … This plane is built to withstand anything… except a bad pilot,”.  When not  averting disasters in the air, Kennedy starred in the seminal earthbound disaster movie,  Earthquake (1974).

The spoofs inevitably followed, and Kennedy revealed his comedic chops as Captain Ed Hocken, the none-too-bright sidekick of bumbling cop Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) in the satirical Naked Gun trilogy (1988-94).
Kennedy's road to nominations and wins was not an easy one. He  was born in New York City into a show business family -his father, George Sr, was a musician and orchestra leader, his mother, was  a ballet dancer. George Junior made his stage debut at the age of two, and by seven he was a radio disc jockey. But the Second World War sidetracked him. He enlisted and served under General George Patton, whom he later portrayed in Brass Target (1979).  He stayed in the Army for 16 years and returned to show business at first as a military consultant on The Phil Silvers Show in 1955. 

For the next decade he appeared as the  bad guy in many TV western series (Rawhide, Gunsmoke , Bonanza] and segued into films, honing his bad guy act opposite the best in the business: as a sadistic jailhouse guard who beats up Kirk Douglas in Lonely Are the Brave (1962); the one-armed hit man who chases Cary Grant over the Paris rooftops in Charade (1963); and the menacing hired gunfighter – “I don’t care what I have to do, as long as I get my money” – who clashed with John Wayne inThe Sons of Katie Elder (1965). It all led to Cool Hand Luke, playing a brutal chain gang boss opposite rebellious chain gang prisoner Paul Newman, bent on bucking the system. Its theme of rebelling against authority and the establishment caught the zeitgeist of the tumultuous 1960s and established Kennedy as a beloved Hollywood character actor.
 

His last role in his six decades long screen career was in the 2014 remake of The Gambler, which starred Mark Wahlberg.
 

Screen tough guy Kennedy was  oving and big hearted,  an advocate for adoption, with four adopted children of his own. "Don't let the fact that you're 77 get in your way." he said in a 2002 interview  "That kid, some place right now, cold and wet, needs somebody to say, "I love you, kid, good night.'"

George Kennedy, two times Golden Globes nominee, died age 91 in Boise, Idaho, surrounded by his family.