"I always say the depth of a person's talent is measured by remembrance," says Rod Steiger. "There have been hundreds of thousands of actors in movies since the medium began but not many that you remember. The ones you remember are the ones who had something that connected with you as a human being."
Steiger is one of the actors who connect. Born 75 years ago -- though he playfully insists that he's Jack Benny's eternal age, 39 -- he has been a working actor longer than most contemporary stars have been alive. Turner Classic Movies is honoring him with a 10-film salute that stretches through June, plus an hourlong interview with TCM host Robert Osborne.Steiger was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his second film appearance, as the mob-connected brother of Marlon Brando's ex-boxer Terry Malloy in "On the Waterfront" (1954). He got a Best Actor nomination for playing a Holocaust survivor in 1965's "The Pawnbroker" and won as Best Actor for playing the redneck sheriff in "In the Heat of the Night" (1967).
He has appeared in more than 100 movies and TV shows. Although the quality has ranged from the sublime to the trashy, he has never played the same kind of guy twice -- no mean feat in an industry that thrives on typecasting.
Fortunately, Steiger came of age in an era that suited his talent and temperament -- the era of The Method, an acting process that sought to infuse the craft with heightened doses of intense psychological realism.
Actors such as Steiger, James Dean, Montgomery Clift and Brando exemplified this new approach, which professed to favor art over entertainment and painful reality over stagebound clichés. Steiger learned his craft in some of postwar America's most innovative acting schools -- the New School of Social Research, the American Theater Wing and the Actors Studio.
"The whole revolution in acting came about because of two words: personal identification," Steiger says. "The new way of thinking was to tell the actor, 'No, listen -- it's not your character's mother who's dead on the floor. It's not some playwright's creation. It's your mother.' "
He didn't have to dig deep to unearth disturbing personal experiences. Steiger was born on Long Island, N.Y., and raised in Newark, N.J. His parents divorced when he was 3. He barely knew his father. His mother was an alcoholic.
"My family was not very well-respected because of the alcohol thing. I said, 'I'm going to do something good so people won't laugh at us anymore.' "
He joined the Navy at 16. He had to track down his mother in a $2-a-night boardinghouse and literally twist her arm to make her sign papers allowing him to enlist. After serving as a torpedoman in World War II, he settled in New York and got a job as a janitor.
Then Steiger heard about a local theater group that had just been organized. He had never seen a play before, much less acted in one. The group was all-female and desperately needed men. Steiger joined immediately and fell in love with the trade. After a couple of years of intense schooling, he moved to the stage, then the screen, debuting in 1951's "Teresa." He originated the role of the shy Bronx butcher "Marty" in the same-titled 1953 television production; Ernest Borgnine played the same part in a movie two years later and won an Oscar.
Steiger's second film was the classic "On the Waterfront," with Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb and, in her screen debut, Eva Marie Saint. The film gave Steiger a peerless education in screen acting, and a chance to work with stage and film directing legend Elia Kazan.
"Waterfront" also gave Steiger an education in professional courtesy -- a quality Brando conspicuously lacked.
Steiger played opposite Brando in one of the great scenes in acting history -- the "I coulda been a contender" scene, between Brando's ethically compromised boxer and Steiger, who played the hero's manipulative older brother. Steiger's anxious-yet-defiant reaction shots are as heartbreaking as Brando's accusations that his brother made him throw a fight for the short-end money.
Amazingly, when Steiger's close-ups were taken, Brando had left the building.
"He went away when it was time for my close-ups," Steiger says. "I never forgot that. Acting is reacting. It wasn't fair."
Steiger's fans have argued that the arc of his career wasn't fair, either. In the '60s, while Steiger did yeoman's work, Brando pursued his actorly flights of fancy into the realm of abstraction, becoming the weirdest movie star of all time. After "The Godfather" and "Last Tango in Paris" in the early '70s, he became a high-salaried parody of himself. His performances were always interesting but often not good.
Steiger has faced plenty of disappointments in his 75 years. He turned down the title role in "Patton" -- the role that won George C. Scott an Oscar in 1970 -- because he said he didn't want to glorify war; he now considers this the biggest mistake of his professional life. In the '70s, younger, prettier Method icons such as Al Pacino and Robert De Niro came in, and Steiger's star waned; he worked a lot in Europe and on TV. In the '80s, he alternated first-rate work in dramas like "The Chosen" (1981) with demeaning roles in dreadful B movies.
He didn't have much luck with matrimony. His four marriages ended in divorce, including one to Claire Bloom, who later married novelist Philip Roth. (He has two children -- a 40-year-old daughter by Bloom who's an opera singer in Europe, and a 7-year-old son by fourth wife Paula Ellis.)
In the '80s, Steiger suffered a severe bout of chemical depression that made it difficult to work. His manager finally warned him that if he didn't do something about his condition and start earning again, he'd go broke.
Through a combination of therapy and medicine, Steiger pulled through. Now he's getting prominent roles in high-profile studio films again -- notably "Mars Attacks!," "Shiloh," "Crazy in Alabama" and "The Hurricane." And he speaks publicly of his struggle, hoping to encourage greater public understanding of depression.
He has even made a kind of peace with Brando. A few years ago, Steiger flew to Montreal to see Brando get a lifetime achievement award and say a few words of praise in his behalf. Brando had invited him via a telegram "that said some very nice things."