His Life in PICTURES

"When you lose your curiosity, you're dead.I don't care if you live to be 117. You're dead." Rod Steiger

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“I BECAME an actor by accident,” Rodney Stephen Steiger once admitted. After leaving home at 15 because his “family had been destroyed by alcoholism,” he joined the Navy during WWII. “[But] when I came out, I only had one year of high school, I had nothing to offer society.” Eventually, he’d take advantage of the G.I. Bill and make his way to NYC and the famed Actor’s Studio — leading to his stage debut in 1947's The Trial of Mary Dugan as well as over 250 TV productions and 90 films before passing in 2002. “Anything I ever learned comes down to something pretty simple: Don’t anticipate life; meet it,” said Rod, who would have turned 100 on April 14. “I’m talking here about having courage to wait. You will get what you deserve.”

1953

TENDER SUBJECT

Rod first found fame on Philco Television Playhouse's “Marty” episode. “The thing I don't like about my career was I did Marty, one of the nicest, tenderest, people in the world. Then I got Jud in Oklahoma! It's the classic villain. And Hollywood [has] a very narrow view. So then I was a villain. I never got another chance to do another thing like 'Marty.”

1954 NOT FARE For his breakout film On the Waterfront, Rod was “very excited” to work with Marlon Brando.