GEORGE KENNEDY Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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GEORGE KENNEDY

Name: George Kennedy                                                                         
Born: 18 February 1925 New York, New York                                                     
                                                                                             
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. (born February 18, 1925) is an Academy-Award                       
winning American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television                       
productions. He is perhaps most familiar as Dragline in Cool Hand Luke and Joe               
Patroni in the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s.                             
                                                                                             
Kennedy was born in New York City, New York into a show business family. His                 
father, George Harris Kennedy, a musician and orchestra leader, died when                     
Kennedy was four years old. He was raised by his mother, Helen A. (née                       
Kieselbach), a ballet dancer. He made his stage debut at the age of two,                     
later becoming a radio performer. Kennedy put aside show business during World               
War II and spent sixteen years in the United States Army, seeing combat and                   
working in the Armed Forces radio. he was involved with the opening of the first             
Army Information Office, which provided provided technical assistance to                     
films and TV shows. After retiring from the military (reportedly because of a                 
back injury), Kennedy found his way back to the entertainment industry.                       
                                                                                             
Kennedy became a technical advisor for the television series Sergeant Bilko,                 
where his acting career began with a few one-line parts. Kennedy began his                   
film career in 1961 in The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. He then appeared in               
several successful films, including 1963's'Charade opposite Cary Grant, Audrey               
Hepburn, Walter Matthau, and James Coburn, 1964's Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte,             
opposite Bette Davis, and 1965's In Harm's Way, opposite John Wayne. He also                 
made numerous television appearances, on The Andy Griffith Show, Perry Mason,                 
Bonanza, McHale's Navy, and Gunsmoke. He won an Academy Award for Best                       
Supporting Actor for Cool Hand Luke (1967). He followed with films such as The               
Dirty Dozen,Bandolero! and The Boston Strangler. In 1970 he appeared in the                   
Academy-Award-winning film Airport, in which he played one of the film's lead                 
characters, Joe Patroni. He reprised this role four years later in Airport 1975               
and again in two further sequels. In 1984, he starred opposite Bo Derek in the               
Hollywood disaster Bolero. Kennedy also appeared in the television series The                 
Love Boat in 1984, playing the character Erik Larsen. He then appeared in                     
several less successful films including Savage Dawn, The Delta Force, and                     
Creepshow 2 before appearing in the comedy hit The Naked Gun: From the Files of               
Police Squad! in 1988, playing Captain Ed Hocken. The film had two sequels in                 
which Kennedy co-starred.                                                                     
                                                                                             
On television, Kennedy played Carter McKay in the CBS prime time serial Dallas (1978-1991),   
appearing from 1988-1991. In the late 1990s, he promoted Breathasure tablets in               
television commercials with the quote "I never go anywhere without my                         
Breathasure." Around this time he reprised his role as Cater McKay in the                     
television films Dallas: JR Returns and Dallas: War of the Ewings. In 1998, he               
voiced Brick Bazooka for the film Small Soldiers. He then made several                       
independent films before making a 2003 comeback to television in the soap opera               
The Young and the Restless, playing the character Albert Miller. In 2005, he                 
made a cameo appearance in the small film Don't Come Knocking, where he played               
the director of an ill-fated Western.                                                         
                                                                                             
Kennedy received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to               
motion pictures, located at 6352 Hollywood Blvd.