Rod Steiger

Highest Rated: 100% Jubal (1956)

Lowest Rated: 10% The Specialist (1994)

Birthday: Apr 14, 1925

Birthplace: Westhampton, New York, USA

Alongside Marlon Brando and James Dean, Rod Steiger helped redefine film acting in America after World War II. The brooding actor found success as the lovelorn butcher "Marty" (1953) on live television, but lost the film role to Ernest Borgnine. In the ensuing years, Steiger racked up a résumé of incendiary film appearances, as Brando's gangster brother in "On the Waterfront" (1954), as a prairie psychopath in "Oklahoma!" (1955), and as an embittered Civil War veteran who goes native in "Run of the Arrow" (1957). Lured to Europe for roles of greater depth than those Hollywood offered, Steiger returned stateside to play Sidney Lumet's "The Pawnbroker" (1964) and won an Academy Award as a bigoted Southern lawman who comes to respect black colleague Sidney Poitier in "In the Heat of the Night" (1967). Steiger maintained a steady workload over the years, playing priests, judges, army generals, presidents, doctors and mobsters on cinema and television screens, at home and abroad. At the time of his death in 2002, Steiger was honored as a fascinating personality, an uncompromising artist whose love of craft inspired generations of cinematic angry young men.