Ben Gazzara (28 Aug, 1930 – 3 Feb, 2012). He was an Italian-American film, stage, & Emmy Award winning television actor & director.Ben Gazzara, veteran actor of stage, film and television, died of pancreatic cancer at Bellevue Hospital Center, said his attorney, Jay Julien, The New York Times. It was the 81st
A native New Yorker studied at the Actors Studio and performed in numerous Broadway productions such as Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof directed by Elia Kazan, though, for turning, he lost Paul Newman. In films, he made a strong impression that the person charged with murder in 1959 in Otto Preminger courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder.
His extensive television work, he was perhaps best known for NBC 1965-1968 Run For Your Life recalls, in which a terminally ill person, one who tries to put the best of his life crunch time remaining.
He continued to work with renowned directors.
His first collaboration with John Cassavetes was on men, who also played Cassavetes and Peter Falk.
Other films include the Coen brothers The Big Lebowski, Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, David Mamet, The Spanish Prisoner, Todd Solondz luck, John Turturro and John McTiernan Illuminata of the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair.
Gazzara is in his third wife, the former Elke Stuckmann, and their daughters lived.
