Burt Young, a former boxer who was in Sylvester Stallone‘s corner as his brother-in-law Paulie in the six Rocky films and received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his turn in the original, has died. He was 83.
He died on Oct. 8 in Los Angeles, his daughter, Anne Morea Steingieser, told The New York Times Wednesday.
A tough guy in real life who usually played tough guys onscreen, Young portrayed a rotten client of gumshoe Jack Nicholson’s in Chinatown (1974), was mobster “Bed Bug” Eddie in The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984) and played Rodney Dangerfield’s protector/chauffeur Lou in Back to School (1986).
Young also appeared in four movies in four straight years with fellow Queens guy James Caan — Cinderella Liberty (1973), The Gambler (1974), The Killer Elite (1975) and Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976) — before they worked together again in Mickey Blue Eyes (1999).
He played a getaway driver in Sam Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite, then got behind the wheel again for the director as a renegade trucker in Convoy (1978).
As the sullen ex-Navy man Paulie Pennino, the older brother of best friend Rocky’s wife, Adrian (Talia Shire), Young was a stalwart of the MGM franchise starting with the inaugural 1976 release. After giving the boxer the idea to train in a chilly meat locker and working as his cornerman, Paulie was a staple of all the movies through Rocky Balboa (2006).
“I was on the MGM lot when Sly Stallone came over and introduced himself to me, told me he wrote Rocky and said, ‘You gotta do it,’ ” he recalled in a 2009 interview for the website The Sweet Science. “I wanted to do it right away, but I wanted to twist their arms a little bit, not look too eager.
“I thought the script had the cleanest street prose I’d ever read. Stallone is not only a workaholic, he’s a genius who is always looking three years ahead. He has a real…
Read the full article here
