GEORGE KENNEDY

'George Harris Kennedy, Jr.'¹ (born February 18, 1925) is an Academy-Award winning American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television productions. He is widely familiar as Joe Patroni in the ''Airport'' series of disaster movies from the 1970s, or more recently as Captain Ed Hocken from the ''Naked Gun'' trilogy.

Contents

Biography

Personal life

Career

Filmography

References

External links

Biography

Personal life

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. (Kieselbach), a ballet dancer.^[1][2][3] 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. After retiring from the military (reportedly because of a back injury), Kennedy found his way back to the entertainment industry.
Kennedy resides in Eagle, Idaho. He is married to Joan McCarthy and has a daughter, Shaunna, and a granddaughter, Taylor.^[4]

Career

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 a couple of sucessful films including 1964's Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte opposite Bette Davis and 1965's In Harm's Way opposite John Wayne. He also made numerous television appeareances, including ones on The Andy Griffith Show, Perry Mason, Bonanza, McHale's Navy, and Gunsmoke. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in ''Cool Hand Luke'' (1967). He followed that victory with films such as Bandolero and The Boston Strangler. In 1970 he appeared in the Academy Award Winning film Airport in which he played one of the films lead characters, Joe Patroni. He reprised this role four years later in Airport '77 and two more sequels. In 1984, he starred opposite Bo Derek in the Hollywood disaster Bolero. Kennedy also appeared in the hit television series The Love Boat in 1984, playing the character Erik Larsen. He then appeared in non-sucessful films including Savage Dawn, The Delta Force, and Creepshow 2 before appearing in the comedy hit in 1988, playing Captain Ed Hocken. The film had two sequels which Kennedy starred in.
On television, Kennedy played Carter McKay in the CBS prime time serial ''Dallas'' (1978-1991). He starred in the series 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 a couple of 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 starred in the small film Don't Come Knocking, where he played the director of an ill-fated Western.

Filmography

★ ''The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come'' (1961)

★ ''Lonely are the Brave'' (1962)

★ ''Charade'' (1963)

★ ''McHale's Navy'' (1964)

★ ''Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte'' (1964)

★ ''Flight_of_the_phoenix'' (1965)

★ ''Shenandoah'' (1965)

★ ''The Sons of Katie Elder'' (1965)

★ ''The Dirty Dozen'' (1967)

★ ''Cool Hand Luke'' (1967)

★ ''The Ballad of Josie'' (1967)

★ ''The Boston Strangler'' (1968)

★ ''Bandolero!'' (1968)

★ ''Guns of the Magnificent Seven'' (1969)

★ ''...tick...tick...tick... (1970)

★ ''Airport'' (1970)

★ ''Sarge (TV Series) )1971)

★ ''Lost Horizon'' (1973)

★ ''Cahill U.S. Marshal'' (1973)

★ ''Airport 1975'' (1974)

★ ''The Blue Knight'' (1975 TV series)

★ ''Earthquake'' (1974)

★ ''Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'' (1974)

★ ''The Eiger Sanction'' (1975)

★ ''The 'Human' Factor'' (1975)

★ ''Airport '77'' (1977)

★ ''Brass Target'' (1978)

★ '' (1979)

★ ''Virus'' (1980)

★ ''Death Ship'' (1980)

★ ''Savage Dawn'' (1985)

★ ''The Delta Force'' (1986)

★ ''Creepshow 2'' (1987)

★ ''The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!'' (1988)

★ ''Dallas'' (1988-1991)

★ ''Demonwarp'' (1988)

★ ''The Terror Within'' (1989)

★ ''Brain Dead'' (1990)

★ '' (1991)

★ '' (1994)

★ ''Bayou Ghost'' (1997)

★ ''Cats Don't Dance'' (1997)

★ ''Small Soldiers'' (1998)

★ The Young And The Restless (2003)

★ ''Truce'' (2004)

★ ''Don't Come Knocking'' (2005)

★ ''The Man Who Came Back'' (2008)

References

1. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/celeb/kennedy.htm
2. http://www.healthyhearing.com/library/interview_content.asp?interview_id=709
3. http://www.filmreference.com/film/44/George-Kennedy.html
4. http://www.hollywood.com/celebritydetail/George_Kennedy/194466

External links

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