Actor George Kennedy has died

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Tough-guy journeyman actor George Kennedy dies at 91

By LINDSEY BAHR, AP
15 hours ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — George Kennedy, the hulking, tough-guy character actor who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a savage chain-gang convict in the 1960s classic "Cool Hand Luke," has died.

His grandson Cory Schenkel says Kennedy died on Sunday morning of old age in Boise, Idaho. He was 91.
He had undergone emergency triple bypass surgery in 2002. That same year, he and his late wife moved to Idaho to be closer to their daughter and her family, though he still was involved in occasional film projects.

His biggest acting achievement came in "Cool Hand Luke," a 1967 film about a rebellious war hero played by Paul Newman who is bent on bucking the system as a prisoner on a Southern chain gang. Its theme of rebelling against authority and the establishment helped make it one of the most important films of the tumultuous 1960s...

http://my.xfinity.com/articles/ente...George.Kennedy/?cid=featuredent_media_Kennedy
 
I'm trying to find an article I read on him from a few years ago but so far no luck. He came across as such a nice humble man, a joy to interview. Here's the article from the Boise Statesman and be sure to read the comments. I've never seen Cool Hand Luke but I'm sure AMC will play it on his tribute day, whenever that is. Wife Joan died in Sept 2015.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/canyon-county/article63196137.html

Kennedy, 91, died of natural causes early Sunday morning at an assisted living facility in Middleton, said Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris. Kennedy had been in hospice care for the past month, his grandson Cory Schenkel, of Boise, said.

snip

Kennedy often seemed as indestructible as the characters he played, but that changed after [wife] Joan died, Schenkel said.

“Once she passed, between that and his old age, he went downhill from there,” Schenkel said. “We visited the day before.”
 
I found the article, from 2011.

http://smashinginterviews.com/inter...end-reflects-on-his-life-in-trust-me-a-memoir

George Kennedy: Yes. Raymond Burr was bigger than Mt. Vesuvius. I’ve got to tell you a story I’ve never told anybody. Raymond and I were big men. We’re talking 6’4”, and both of us weighed more than a ton and a half each. For that reason, as well as others, we liked each other. If you can picture this, we’d talk about being big guys and we would giggle.

Now, here was 600 pounds of guys sitting between shots in a couple of chairs and almost breaking them because we’re giggling at jokes. Over all of Raymond’s movies and TV shows, I remember him as a guy who’d giggle with me and didn’t care. I thought he was a wonderful actor.
 
I'm so sad about this. He did have a good run, and probably outlived a lot of his contemporaries. But he was one of those super-versatile support actors. Well, he did play a lot of tough guys, but they could have been good or bad guys, or, as with his performance in Cool Hand Luke, both. I'm not of his generation -- not even close -- but his acting left a mark on me.
 

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