Art Carney

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Art Carney
Born	November 4, 1918 Mount Vernon, New York
Died	November 9, 2003 Chester, Connecticut

Art Carney (November 4, 1918 – November 9, 2003) was an Academy Award winning American actor in film, stage, television, and radio.

Born Arthur William Matthew Carney in Mount Vernon, New York, he gained lifelong fame for his portrayal of upstairs neighbor and sewer worker Ed Norton opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the popular television comedy show The Honeymooners. Art Carney also had many screen and stage roles, including the portrayal on Broadway of Felix Unger in The Odd Couple (opposite Walter Matthau as Oscar). He was nominated for seven Emmy Awards.

Carney had been a busy radio actor before being drafted as an infantryman during World War II. He participated in the Battle of Normandy and was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

In 1974 he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as an elderly man going on the road with his pet cat in Harry and Tonto. In 1978, Carney appeared in The Star Wars Holiday Special, a spin-off film to the Star Wars series. In it, he played Trader Saun Dann, a member of the Rebel Alliance who was a close friend of Chewbacca and his family. He also appeared in such films as W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, The Late Show, House Calls, Movie Movie and Going in Style. Later movies included The Muppets Take Manhattan, and the thriller Firestarter.

In 1981, he portrayed Harry Truman, an 84-year-old lodge owner in the half-fiction/half-reality based account of events leading to the eruption of Mount St. Helens, in the movie titled St. Helens.

He was married three times to two women:

• Barbara Isaac from December 21, 1966 to 1977
• Jean Myers, from 1940 to 1965; from 1980 to November 9, 2003: 3 children

Although he retired in the late 1980s, he remerged in 1993 to make a small cameo in the Arnold Schwarzenegger flop Last Action Hero as Schwarzenegger's second cousin Frank who is tortured by the movie's main villain.

Carney died at his home of natural causes five days after his 85th birthday in Westbrook, Connecticut; he was survived by his widow and children.

Art Carney has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.

Preceded by: Jack Lemmon for Save the Tiger

Academy Award for Best Actor 1974 for Harry and Tonto

Succeeded by: Jack Nicholson for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

[edit] External links

• Art Carney at the Internet Movie Database
• http://www.clown-ministry.com/index_1.php?/site/articles/art_carney_biography_best_known_as_ed_norton_on_the_honeymooners/