George Kennedy in 'Cool Hand Luke.'
The burly actor played bad guys in such films as 'Charade' and 'Thunderbolt & Lightfoot' before memorably playing against type in the 'Naked Gun' movies.
George Kennedy, a bear of a man who won an Oscar for his performance as the sadistic chain gang prisoner Dragline in Cool Hand Luke and delighted audiences as a dimwitted police captain in the zany Naked Gun comedies, has died. He was 91.
Kennedy died Sunday morning of natural causes in Boise, Idaho, his grandson, Cory Schenkel, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. "He was a great man who loved his family and his fans," he said.
Until his recognition in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Kennedy was usually cast as a tough guy. Following his Oscar win for best supporting actor, he went on to star in The Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) and received second billing in such films as The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969) with Robert Mitchum; Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) with Frank Sinatra; Fools' Parade(1971) with James Stewart; and The Eiger Sanction (1975) with Clint Eastwood, a frequent co-star.
A former Army career soldier, Kennedy played a series of heavies in the movies. He attacked Cary Grant with a steel claw in Stanley Donen's Charade (1963), pursued Joan Crawford with an ax in Strait-Jacket (1964), attempted to assassinate Gregory Peck in Mirage (1965) and kicked Jeff Bridges to death in Thunderbolt & Lightfoot (1974).
The 6-foot-4, barrel-chested New Yorker also appeared as airplane mechanic Joe Patroni in the star-studded disaster thriller Airport (1970) and its three sequels.
Along with Leslie Nielsen, another actor with a straight-arrow reputation, Kennedy played comically against type as Captain Ed Hocken (replacing Alan North from the TV show) in the antic Jim Abrahams/Zucker brothers spoofs The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!(1988), The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult(1994).
On television, the sandy-haired Irish-American starred in two short-lived series in the 1970s - as a homicide detective turned priest in NBC's Sarge and as L.A. beat cop Bumper Morgan on CBS' The Blue Knight, based on the Joseph Wambaugh best-seller. He also played Ewing family nemesis Carter McKay from 1988-91 on the CBS primetime soap Dallas.
Recently, Big George appeared in the films Another Happy Day (2011) and Mark Wahlberg's The Gambler (2014).