I first became aware of actor Charles Durning, who died on Christmas Eve at the age of 89, in his role as a corrupt Chicago policeman in The Sting (1973). I was a kid, but I knew that he seemed realistic in the role, and I would continue to be impressed with his performances in my favorite CBS law and order shows, such as Hawaii Five-O, Barnaby Jones and Cannon. Then, I saw him as the captain of the doomed airship, The Hindenburg (1975) and, again, he was thoroughly convincing, as he was as another cop in Dog Day Afternoon that same year. The rotund actor was gritty in each role. But he was also remarkably intelligent in each performance, showing in his eyes and facial expressions that he was a man trying to solve a problem, which his roles typically called upon his character to do, and, while it would have been easy for him to emote and express his way into an overdone performance, as was common in the late 1960s and 1970s, he instead chose to inhabit each character with a uniquely indelible personality.
Durning, a war veteran who was reportedly among the first to land on the beaches of Normandy during World War 2 and the only member of his Army unit to survive, had a lifetime of traumatic experiences to draw upon: he had lost his father at the age of 12, lost five of his sisters to smallpox and scarlet fever, and he had killed Nazis, been wounded and captured during the Battle of the Bulge and survived a massacre of fellow prisoners of war. He’d left home at 16, worked in a slag heap and made his own way in life, emerging as an actor in some of the finest pictures in Hollywood. When asked by an interviewer in 1997 about his military experience – Durning had been awarded three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star – he declined to discuss it, simply saying: “Too many bad memories. I don’t want you to see me crying.”
His range was wide. He portrayed the father of a daughter with an eating disorder opposite Eva Marie Saint in the 1981 telefim The Best Little Girl in the World. He played comedy in Starting Over (1979), horror in When a Stranger Calls (1979) and musical as a crooked governor who dances up a storm in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) for which he was nominated for an Oscar. That same year brought him one of his most memorable roles as Jessica Lange’s father falling in love with Dustin Hoffman in drag in Tootsie. A year later he played an angel trying to save John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Two of a Kind and his enduring career continued with key parts in Dick Tracy (1990), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Home for the Holidays (1995) and roles for television in Evening Shade, Everybody Loves Raymond and Rescue Me. Charles Durning displayed depth, strength and tenderness, and, therefore, humanity in nearly every picture. His work mattered. He will be missed.