ĭurning received the French National Order of the Legion of Honor from the French consul in Los Angeles in April 2008. Additional awards included the Army Good Conduct Medal, the American Campaign Medal and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one bronze service star, and the World War II Victory Medal His badges included the Combat Infantryman Badge, Expert Badge with Rifle Bar, and Honorable Service Lapel Pin. He was an honored guest speaker for over a decade at the National Memorial Day Concert televised by PBS every year on the Sunday evening of Memorial Day weekend.ĭurning was paid a special tribute at the National Memorial Day Concert when Taps was sounded in his honor.įor his valor and for the wounds he received during the war, Durning was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart Medals. National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans. ĭurning was known for participating in various functions to honor American veterans. Durning was discharged with the rank of Private First Class on January 30, 1946. He was wounded by a German “S” Mine on Jat La Mare des Mares, Normandy. He was drafted at age 20 and participated in the Normandy Invasion of France. He is survived by his three children from his first marriage.Ĭharles Durning served in the U.S. He was legally separated from his second wife, Mary Ann (Amelio) Durning, in 2010. In 1959, Durning married his first wife, Carole Doughty. His mother, Louise (née Leonard 1894–1982), was a laundress at West Point, and his father, James Durning (1883 – c. His three brothers James (Roger) (1915–2000), Clifford (1916–1994),and Gerald Durning (born 1926), and his sister Frances (born 1919) survived to adulthood, but five sisters lost their lives to scarlet fever and smallpox as children. His most recent Emmy honors were for a stint as Denis Leary's father on "Rescue Me".Durning was born in Highland Falls, New York, the ninth of ten children. Durning won a Tony Award in 1990 for playing "Big Daddy" in a revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opposite Kathleen Turner (who he worked with onscreen immediately thereafter in the failed would be franchise launch VI Warshawski) but sadly he never won any major competitive acting award for his onscreen work despite Globe, Emmy, and Oscar nominations. The Golden Globes got to him before the Academy - as they so often do - nominating him for Best Supporting Actor for his hostage negotiator in Dog Day Afternoon (1975) which we recently discussed. Other roles I have slightly less vivid memories of from that decade were his Oscar nominated turn in Mel Brooks comedy To Be Or Not To Be (1983) and his monsignor in the gay drama Mass Appeal (1985). So I rented that one in 1985 of 1986, I think, on the sly - my parents did not approve of "raunchy movies" - and just delighted in his "little sidestep ♫ " I remember experiencing early onset Oscar confusion when I realized (a couple of years after the fact) that he had been nominated for an extended cameo in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas instead. I absolutely loved him in Tootsie (1982), one of the all time great movie comedies, as Jessica Lange's widower dad who took an unfortunate shine to Dorothy (Dustin Hoffman in drag). Since the seeds of my movie mania were planted in the early 1980s, Charles Durning was one of the very first actors that embodied and defined the term "Character Actor" for me. Had any of those movies (well, not, Magic Mike) been made in the 1980s, he would with certainty have popped up - 100% - growling great lines in a suit or stove pipe hat. He was 89 years-old.Ĭharles Durning at the SAG ceremony in 2008 accepting his lifetime achievement award 2012 has been, so definitively, the year for huge teeming male casts ( Argo, Lincoln, Zero Dark, Magic Mike) of stars and character actors playing anxious determined men that I felt an extra pang of sadness to hear about the passing of Charles Durning on Christmas Eve.
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