George C. Scott

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George C. Scott

George C. Scott
Born George Campbell Scott
18 October 1927(1927-10-18)
Wise, Virginia
Died 22 September 1999 (aged 71)
Westlake Village, California
Years active 1958-1999
Spouse(s) Carolyn Hughes (1951-1955)
Patricia Reed (1955-1960)
Colleen Dewhurst (1960-1965, 1967-1972)
Trish Van Devere (1972-1999)

George Campbell Scott (October 18, 1927 - September 22, 1999) was an American stage and film actor, director, and producer. He was best known for his Academy Award-winning portrayal of General George S. Patton Jr. in the film Patton, as well as for his flamboyant performance as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Scott was born in Wise, Virginia, the son of Helena Agnes (née Slemp; 1904-1935) and George Dewey Scott (1902-1987). He was the only son and younger of their two children. His mother died just before his eighth birthday, and he was raised by his father, an executive at the Buick Motor Company. Scott's great-uncle was congressman C. Bascom Slemp.

As a young man, Scott's original ambition was to be a writer like his idol, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and while in high school, he wrote many short stories, none of which were ever published. As an adult, he tried on many occasions to write a novel, but was never able to complete one to his satisfaction. When asked by an interviewer in later life which contemporary novelists he admired, he replied, "I stopped reading novels when I stopped trying to write them."

Scott joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving from 1945 until 1949, and was assigned to the prestigious 8th and I Barracks in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, he served as a guard at Arlington National Cemetery and taught English literature and radio speaking/writing at the Marine Corps Institute. He later said that his duties at Arlington led to his drinking.

After his military service, Scott enrolled in the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism and then became interested in drama; he left college after a year to pursue acting.

[edit] Broadway and film career

Scott first rose to prominence for his work with the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1958, winning an Obie Award for his performances in Children of Paradise, As You Like It, and an especially acclaimed performance as Shakespeare's Richard III (a performance one critic said was the "angriest" Richard III of all time)[1]. He graduated to Broadway the following year, winning critical acclaim for his portrayal of the prosecutor in The Andersonville Trial by Saul Levitt. This was based on the military trial of the commandant of the infamous Civil War prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia. His performance earned him a mention in Time magazine as a rising young actor of great intensity. In 1970 Scott directed a highly acclaimed television version of this same play. It starred William Shatner, Richard Basehart and Jack Cassidy who was nominated for an Emmy award for his performance as the defense lawyer in this production.

In 1963, Scott was top billed in the critically acclaimed CBS hour-long drama series East Side, West Side; he and co-star Cicely Tyson played urban social workers. Perhaps too gritty and stark for 1963, the show lasted only one season.

Scott won wide public recognition in the film, Anatomy of a Murder, in which he played a wily prosecutor opposite Jimmy Stewart as the defense attorney. Scott was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor; when he was notified of the nomination, he called the Academy Awards a "meat parade" or "meat race".

Scott's most famous early role was in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, where he played the part of General "Buck" Turgidson. It is revealed on the DVD documentary that after having shot many takes of any given scene, Stanley Kubrick would frequently ask Scott to redo it in an "over the top" fashion. Kubrick would then proceed to use this version in the final cut, which Scott supposedly resented. However, Kubrick did earn Scott's respect on this film, since by that time Scott was an accomplished chess player. The cast and crew noted they would often play chess between takes, and Kubrick was the only person who could routinely beat him.

Scott's portrayal of the swaggering and controversial General Patton in the 1970 film Patton has become, to many, his greatest performance. Many film critics and historians consider it one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema. Scott had researched extensively for the role, studying films of the general and talking to those who knew him. Having declined an Academy Award nomination for his appearance in the 1961 film The Hustler, Scott returned his Oscar for Patton, stating in a letter to the Academy that he didn't feel himself to be in competition with other actors. However, also regarding this second rejection of the Academy Award, Scott famously said elsewhere, "The whole thing is a goddamn meat parade. I don't want any part of it."[2] Sixteen years later, in 1986, Scott reprised his Patton title role in a made-for-television sequel, The Last Days of Patton. The movie was based on Patton's final weeks after being mortally injured in a car accident, with flashbacks of Patton's life. At the time that sequel was aired, Scott mentioned in a TV Guide interview that he had verbally told the Academy to donate his Oscar to the Patton Museum; since the instructions were never put in writing, it was never delivered. The Oscar is currently displayed at the Virginia Military Institute museum in Lexington, Virginia, the same institution that generations of Pattons have attended. Scott did not turn down the New York Film Critics Award for his performance (of which his wife Colleen Dewhurst said "George thinks this is the only film award worth having'[3].

He continued his stage work, winning Tony Award nominations for Uncle Vanya (1973), Death of a Salesman (1975), and Inherit the Wind (1996), the latter despite his having to miss an unusually large number of performances due to illness, with his role being taken over by National Actors Theatre artistic director Tony Randall. Scott frequently directed on Broadway in productions in which he did not appear, including productions of All God's Chillun Got Wings (1975) and Design for Living (1985), as well as being an actor/director in Death of a Salesman, Present Laughter (1982), and On Borrowed Time (1991).

In 1971, Scott gave two more critically acclaimed performances, as a de facto Sherlock Holmes in They Might Be Giants, and as an alcoholic doctor in the black comedy The Hospital. Despite his repeated snubbing of the Academy, Scott was again nominated for Best Actor for the latter role. Scott excelled on television that year as well, appearing in an adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price, an installment of the Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology. He was nominated for, and won, an Emmy Award for his role, which he accepted. His reasoning for keeping an Emmy after rejecting an Oscar was believed to be because the Emmy Award winners were chosen by blue-ribbon panels of experts, while Academy Award winners were chosen by the entire Academy membership.

The actor also starred in the popular 1980 horror film The Changeling, with Melvyn Douglas. He received the Canadian Genie Award for Best Foreign Film Actor for his performance.[4] In 1982, Scott was cast as Fagin in the CBS made-for-TV adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, winning praise from audiences and critics alike for his unusual portrayal of the character, which in past versions was portrayed as elderly and diminutive, a polar opposite of Scott's younger, stronger, and much more formidable version of the character. In 1984, Scott was cast in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in a television adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Critics and the public alike also praised him in this performance. Some have said his Scrooge ranks alongside Alastair Sim's portrayal in the 1951 theatrical film. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role.

In 1990, he voiced the villain Smoke in the TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, where his character was alongside popular cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny. That same year, he voice acted the villain Percival McLeach in the Disney film, The Rescuers Down Under. The following year, he hosted the TV series Weapons At War on A&E TV, but was replaced after one season by Gerald McRaney for the last two seasons. Weapons At War moved to The History Channel with Scott still being shown as host for the first season. His episodes would be replaced by Robert Conrad in 2000 after Scott's death the previous year.

Scott had a reputation for being moody and mercurial while on the set. "There is no question you get pumped up by the recognition," he once said, "Then a self-loathing sets in when you realise you're enjoying it." He said he'd seen a psychiatrist four times, "I kept laughing. I couldn't get serious. If it helps you, it helps you. If standing on your head on the roof helps you, it helps you - if you think so." There is a famous anecdote that one of his stage co-stars, Maureen Stapleton, told the director of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite: "I don't know what to do, I am scared of him." The director, Mike Nichols, replied, "My dear, everyone is scared of George C. Scott!"

Scott's favorite film actress was Bette Davis, whom he called "my bloody idol."

[edit] Personal life

Scott was married five times:

  1. Carolyn Hughes (1951–1955) (one daughter, Victoria, born December 19, 1952)
  2. Patricia Reed (1955–1960) (two children: Matthew - born May 27, 1957 - and actress Devon Scott - born November 29, 1958).
  3. The Canadian-born actress Colleen Dewhurst (1960–1965), by whom he had two sons, writer Alexander Scott (born August 1960), and actor Campbell Scott (born July 19, 1961). Dewhurst nicknamed her husband "G.C."
  4. He remarried Colleen Dewhurst on July 4, 1967, but divorced for a second time on February 2, 1972.
  5. The American actress Trish Van Devere on September 4, 1972, with whom he starred in several films, including the supernatural thriller The Changeling (1980). They were estranged at the time of his death.

He also had a daughter, Michelle, born August 21, 1954, with Karen Truesdell.

Scott died on September 22, 1999 at the age of 71 from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. He is buried next to Walter Matthau, in an unmarked grave.[5]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] See also

United States Marine Corps Portal

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0153529.html
  2. ^ Meat Parade - TIME
  3. ^ "Inside Oscar" by Damien Boa and Mason Wiley
  4. ^ The Changeling (1979) - A Review by David Nusair
  5. ^ George C. Scott (1927 - 1999) - Find A Grave Memorial

[edit] External links


Awards
Preceded by
Jon Voight
for Midnight Cowboy		 NYFCC Award for Best Actor
1970
for Patton		 Succeeded by
Gene Hackman
for The French Connection
v • d • e
Academy Award for Best Actor

Maximilian Schell (1961) · Gregory Peck (1962) · Sidney Poitier (1963) · Rex Harrison (1964) · Lee Marvin (1965) · Paul Scofield (1966) · Rod Steiger (1967) · Cliff Robertson (1968) · John Wayne (1969) · George C. Scott (1970) · Gene Hackman (1971) · Marlon Brando (1972) · Jack Lemmon (1973) · Art Carney (1974) · Jack Nicholson (1975) · Peter Finch (1976) · Richard Dreyfuss (1977) · Jon Voight (1978) · Dustin Hoffman (1979) · Robert De Niro (1980)

Complete List · (1928–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001-present)
v • d • e
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie

Thomas Mitchell (1952) · Robert Cummings (1954) · Lloyd Nolan (1955) · Jack Palance (1956) · Peter Ustinov (1957) · Fred Astaire (1959) · Laurence Olivier (1960) · Maurice Evans (1961) · Peter Falk (1962) · Trevor Howard (1963) · Jack Klugman (1964) · Alfred Lunt (1965) · Cliff Robertson (1966) · Peter Ustinov (1967) · Melvyn Douglas (1968) · Paul Scofield (1969) · Peter Ustinov (1970) · George C. Scott (1971) · Keith Michell (1972) · Laurence Olivier (1973) · Anthony Murphy (1973) · Hal Holbrook (1974) · William Holden (1974) · Laurence Olivier (1975) · Peter Falk (1975)
v • d • e
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor - Miniseries or a Movie

Scott Jacoby (1972) · Marlon Brando (1979) · George Grizzard (1980) · David Warner (1981) · Laurence Olivier (1982) · Richard Kiley (1983) · Art Carney (1984) · Karl Malden (1985) · John Malkovich (1986) · Dabney Coleman (1987) · John Shea (1988) · Derek Jacobi (1989) · Vincent Gardenia (1990) · James Earl Jones (1991) · Hume Cronyn (1992) · Beau Bridges (1993) · Michael A. Goorjian (1994) · Donald Sutherland (1995) · Tom Hulce (1996) · Beau Bridges (1997) · George C. Scott (1998) · Peter O'Toole (1999) · Hank Azaria (2000)