Rod Steiger

Rod Steiger married five times. His first marriage to Sally Grace was solemnized in 1952 and it ended in a divorce in 1959. The couple did not have any children.

On September 20,1959, he married Claire Bloom. The couple’s daughter Anna Steiger is now a famous opera singer. They divorced on June 10, 1969.

He then married his secretary Sherry Nelson on April 21, 1973. The marriage ended in a divorce on January 22, 1980 without producing any offspring.

Rod Steiger was born on April 14, 1925 in Westhampton, New York, to Lorraine and Frederick Steiger. Both his parents were vaudevillian. However, his father had left them soon after his birth and so he never knew him. He was brought up by her mother, who became an alcoholic.

His mother’s drinking habit not only embarrassed young Rodney, but he often had to pull her out from her drinking holes and then queue up for bread. In spite of that, he attended West Side High School, where he displayed an interest in writing poetry and acting. He also appeared in several school plays.

Fed up of quarreling with his mother, Stieger ran away from home at the age of 16. Lying about his age, he finally enlisted in the United States Navy on May 11, 1942 and underwent two years of training at the Naval Training Station in Newport.

He then joined USS Taussig on May 20, 1944 as a torpedo-man. While serving on the destroyer, Stieger took part in different battles in the South Pacific Theatre, including the Battle of Iwo Jima and also encountered Halsey's Typhoon.

After the war, he went back to New Jersey to look after his mother and began to earn his living by doing menial jobs at the Office of Dependants and Beneficiaries. He also joined their drama group, Civil Service Little Theater, mainly because it was attended by many pretty women.

Steiger had made his stage debut in 1946 in ‘Curse you, Jack Dalton!’ a year before he joined Actors Studio. Later he made his TV debut with ‘Telas, the King’ (1950) and film debut with a small role in ‘Teresa’ (1951).

Concurrently, he continued with his stage acting. From 1950 to 1952 he enacted small, but significant roles in plays like ‘An Enemy of the People’ (1950) and ‘Night Music’ (1951) and ‘Seagulls Over Sorrento’ (1952).

Also from 1950 to 1955, he appeared in numerous televisions programs, averaging one per week. Among Steiger's credits were ‘Taste of Ashes’ (1950), ‘Café Ami’ (1951), ‘Ordeal in Space’ (1951), ‘The Window’ (1952), ‘Café Society’ (1953), ‘Raymond Schindler, Case One’ (1953) etc.

However, it was his lead role in ‘Marty’ (1953), which opened floodgate of film offers for him. He accepted the role of Charley "The Gent" Malloy in the 1954 film ‘On the Water Front’. His taxi scene with Marlon Brando later became part of film history.

His next memorable film was ‘The Big Knife’ (1955). In this film, he enacted the role of an obnoxious film tycoon Stanley Shriner Hoff, going to the extent of bleaching his hair to suit the character. ‘The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell’, also released in 1955, was another of his significant work.

Although he failed to get the Academy Award for it ‘The Pawnbroker’ (1965) is probably Steiger’s best work. In this film, he played the role of a German-Jewish university professor living in Harlem, haunted by memories of Nazi prison camp, where he had seen his children die and his wife being raped. The film not only got critical acclaim, but Steiger’s performance was also highly lauded.