I had never really heard or even thought much of George Kennedy until we watched the Airport movies and I started knowing him as Joe Patroni, an airline troubleshooter. I liked him so much in those movies that I started watching and searching for other movies that he might have played in both as a young man and as he is now.
I was really lucky to find him along side of some of my more favorite stars such as John Wayne in Sons of Katie Elder, The Train Robbers and Cahill U.S. Marshal. He was in The Flight of the Phoenix with James Stewart, Charade with Cary Grant and starred with Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In most of these parts he played a hard, cold or indifferent man. As Joe Patroni, he was more carefree, chewed on that nasty old cigar and of course loved his wife so much that he would move heaven or hell or a huge airplane to get home to her or to keep her safe.
In the movie Earthquake, he played a policeman who in the mist of all the chaos, managed to rescue a young woman and keep law and order. What a man!
So as we go from hard and cold to strong and loving, we don't stop there. There is a giggle side to him with a great knack for comedy as he played along side of Leslie Nielson in Naked Gun 2 1/2 and Naked Gun 33 1/3.George played so many different parts that its hard to describe them all. There's not much this man cannot do, a part he cannot play, or a woman he cannot save. But then of course he is a Lefty, he can do it all!
Happy 85th Birthday George Kennedy!
