Oscar Winner Rod Steiger Dead at 77

By Stephen M. Silverman

Tuesday July 09, 2002 01:00 AM EDT

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Oscar-winning method actor Rod Steiger, who won the Best Actor Academy Award for his role as bigoted Southern sheriff Bill Gillespie in 1967's Best Picture "In the Heat of the Night," died Tuesday in a Los Angeles hospital of kidney failure and pneumonia, reports the Associated Press. He was 77. For several decades starting in the '50s, Steiger was a definitive performer, whose memorable roles included those in David Lean's 1965 epic "Doctor Zhivago" (as the lawyer who swindled the main character's father and who raped Lara, played by Julie Christie), in Sidney Lumet's 1964 "The Pawnbroker" (as concentration-camp survivor Sol Nazerman) and in Elia Kazan's 1954 classic "On the Waterfront" (as Marlon Brando's mob-tinged brother). He even managed to conquer roles when cast against type, such as his villainous -- and singing -- Jud Fry in the 1955 film version of the musical stage smash "Oklahoma!" His last film performance was in the 2001 movie "A Month of Sundays." Steiger was married and divorced four times, most notably to actress Claire Bloom (1959-69), with whom he had a daughter, Anna, now an opera singer. In recent years, Elizabeth Taylor credited Steiger's devoted friendship with helping to bring her out of a severe depression. (Steiger himself had suffered with depression for eight years late in his life.) As noted by the Associated Press, an interviewer once asked Steiger how he would like to die. "I don't want to," he replied, "but if it's in front of a camera I wouldn't mind."