One of the finest ever “method actors”, Eli Wallach was a star of the stage and screen between 1945 and 2010 and once had to ask the director John Hutson for advice on how to play a drunk because he was a strict teetotaler. Brooklyn born and the son of a sweet shop owner, Wallach once stated: “The big secret in acting is listening to people” and added: “As an actor I’ve played more bandits, thieves, warlords, molesters and mafioso than you could shake a stick at”. In his final big screen appearance as Julius Steinhardt in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2010, he used “ominous whistling” when he forgot his lines.
Eli Wallach’s most memorable movies will always be The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Magnificent Seven. He also co-starred with the likes of Franco Nero and Lee van Cleef in many great western movies. He was a real movie star.
Great comment!!!!!
I met Eli Wallach and David Janssen in 1965 when I was twenty one and they were fifty and thirty four respectively
Both were massive through Wallach’s brilliant performance in the Magnificent Seven and David Janssen’s dominance of British Television through The Fugitive
I had a stall on Portobello Road – a proper outside street stall – when they came and bought some interesting things from me..
I later met Barry Morse, who played lnspector Gerrard..Barry came to my parties…he was short and sweet
Nice people all..have been so lucky