ACTOR
Ernest Borgnine
78 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (78)
- #001
While filming Vera Cruz (1954) in Mexico, Ernest Borgnine and his co-star Charles Bronson found themselves with some extra time and decided to ride to the nearest town to buy cigarettes. Still in full costume, including gun belts and pistols, they mounted their horses and set off. Along the way they were spotted by a truckload of Mexican "federales" (federal police), who took them for bandits and held them at gunpoint until their identities could be verified.
- #002
In 2007, on his 90th birthday, Ernest Borgnine became the first man to win the Best Actor Oscar to reach that age, and in 2012, on his 95th birthday, he became the first Best Actor Oscar winner to still be alive (and working) at that age.
- #003
In a video interview posted on the Screen Actors Guild website in connection with his 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award, Ernest Borgnine was asked by Facebook members which actor he most wanted to work with but never had. He named only one: Peter O'Toole, saying they had been friends for years and that O'Toole had a wonderful attitude he had always admired. On July 10, 2012, two days after Borgnine's death, O'Toole announced his retirement from acting.
- #004
Ernest Borgnine remained physically healthy and active until his death at the age of 95.
- #005
Ernest Borgnine said that at one point he considered a career in the United States Navy, where he spent ten years, but that his mother persuaded him to become an actor.
- #006
In January 2011, Ernest Borgnine received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, presented by Morgan Freeman and Tim Conway.
- #007
Ernest Borgnine was a heavy smoker until 1962. That year he quit smoking and became a militant anti-smoking advocate.
- #008
Ernest Borgnine's car license plate read BORG9.
- #009
In McHale's Navy (1962), Ernest Borgnine played a U.S. Navy officer aboard a PT boat. In real life, Borgnine was a Navy petty officer (Gunner's Mate) aboard the USS Slyph (PY-12), a yacht taken into Navy service as a small patrol vessel and fitted with various guns and depth charges.
- #010
According to Jonathan Silverman, the lead of The Single Guy (1995), Ernest Borgnine came to work with more energy and passion than all the other stars combined. He was the first to arrive on set each day and the last to leave.
- #011
In McHale's Navy (1962), Ernest Borgnine's character spoke Italian, just as Borgnine did in real life.
- #012
Ernest Borgnine was the first "center square" on The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1965), during its premiere week in October 1966.
- #013
Along with Norman Lloyd, William Daniels, Angela Lansbury, Mickey Rooney, Betty White, Dick Van Dyke, Edward Asner, Celeste Holm, Christopher Lee, Adam West, Marla Gibbs, William Shatner, Larry Hagman, Florence Henderson, Shirley Jones, Hal Linden and Alan Alda, Borgnine was one of the few film actors who lived through their 80s and/or 90s without retiring from acting or having to look for work.
- #014
He was the only actor to appear in all four "Dirty Dozen" films.
- #015
Although he and Mickey Rooney were occasionally rivals, they were also very good friends and worked together many times over the years, notably at the opening of the 50th Academy Awards (1978), in Outlaws: The Legend of O. B. Taggart (1995), whose screenplay was written by Rooney, and in Night Club (2011). On the evening of 9 July 2012 in Hollywood, a 50th-anniversary celebration of the filming of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) was held with many of the film's cast and crew, hosted by Billy Crystal. Ernest had died the previous day, and that evening Rooney took the stage, acknowledged this fact and asked the audience to observe a moment of silence. The event was filmed and later released as The Last 70mm Film Festival (2014).
- #016
He died on 8 July 2012 at the age of 95, three months after the other four television legends also born in 1917 and aged 94 or 95: Ann Rutherford, Celeste Holm, Phyllis Diller and Herbert Lom; and only five days after Andy Griffith, who was born in 1926.
- #017
His grandfather was the financial adviser to King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.
- #018
He was involved in a plane crash (1996) and had both of his knees replaced (1999).
- #019
While filming Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) in Lone Pine, CA, he auditioned for the lead role in the romantic drama Marty (1955).
- #020
In 2007 he celebrated his 90th birthday at a local bistro in West Hollywood, CA. Guests included Tim Conway; his wife Tova Borgnine; Dennis Farina; Army Archerd; Andy Granatelli; Bo Hopkins; Burt Young; Steven Bauer; his son Cris Borgnine; his grandson Anthony Borgnine; Debbie Reynolds; Connie Stevens; Larry Manetti; and Don Rickles, among others.
- #021
Since the 1970s he periodically appeared as "Grand Clown" for the Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
- #022
His fifth wife, Tova Borgnine, was almost 25 years younger than he was.
- #023
He never retired from acting and worked until his death at the age of ninety-five.
- #024
At the age of 91 he wrote an autobiography titled "Ernie," a loose, conversational memoir of the key moments in his acting career and the important events of his personal life.
- #025
He won the 1955 Oscar for Best Actor for Marty (1955), his first and only Oscar nomination. He was also nominated for and won the Golden Globe, BAFTA (British Academy), National Board of Review and New York Film Critics Circle Awards for the same role. All of these were not only his first wins but also his first and only nominations as a lead actor in a theatrical film.
- #026
He was the only film star to appear in 3D films both from the Golden Age of the 1950s (The Stranger Wore a Gun (1953) and The Bounty Hunter (1954)) and from the format's revival in the 2010s (one of his last films, The Lion of Judah (2011)).
- #027
He was inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum's Great Western Performers Hall (1996).
- #028
He was one of the main inspirations for George Lucas in creating the character Dexter Jettster in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and, years later, the character Pao in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).
- #029
Tim Conway, his former McHale's Navy (1962) co-star, reunited with him on SpongeBob SquarePants (1999), taking on a recurring role in separate segments of each show.
- #030
He was considered for the role of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972) before Marlon Brando was cast.
- #031
Although he played Kirk Douglas's father in The Vikings (1958), in real life he was six weeks younger than Douglas. In the same film he also portrayed Tony Curtis's father even though he was only eight years older than Curtis.
- #032
He was an active Mason and served as Honorary Chairman of the Scottish Rite RiteCare Program, which sponsors 175 Scottish Rite childhood language disorder clinics, centers and programs nationwide.
- #033
On March 3, 2006, Ernest Borgnine received a standing ovation when he was introduced at the National Italian American Foundation's salute to the Academy Awards, celebrating the 78th year of Italian-American Oscar winners and nominees. The dinner, co-chaired by former Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti, was attended by Italian-Americans as well as Connie Stevens, Dom DeLuise, Robert Loggia and Al Martino, along with Italian actor Franco Nero.
- #034
Ernest Borgnine was the producers' first choice for the lead role in McHale's Navy (1962).
- #035
As a Mason, Ernest Borgnine received his 50-year pin at Abingdon Lodge #48 in Abingdon, VA (2000).
- #036
In 1971, Ernest Borgnine returned to Hamden, CT for a reunion, spending hours visiting familiar places and sharing memories with townspeople.
- #037
Ernest Borgnine died on July 8, 2012. Shortly before his death, he appeared in his final film, Vicente Fernandez's Elini Sıkan Adam (2012).
- #038
Ernest Borgnine was one of the few overseas guests invited twice to the TV Week Logie Awards, Australia's main television industry awards, held in Melbourne in March 1982 and March 1990.
- #039
When he was very young, Ernest Borgnine's idols were Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey.
- #040
Ernest Borgnine had attended Yale University, where he majored in mathematics and hated it; he transferred to the Randall School of Dramatic Arts in Hartford, CT, with the costs paid by the G.I. Bill.
- #041
Ernest Borgnine attended the funeral of his closest friend, Michael Landon (1991).
- #042
Ernest Borgnine guest-starred in the final two episodes of the medical drama ER (1994).
- #043
Ernest Borgnine was an active Republican.
- #044
Ernest Borgnine's mother and father separated when he was two years old, and he and his mother lived in Italy for about 4-1/2 years.
- #045
Ernest Borgnine was a Master Mason and had risen to the 33rd Degree of the Scottish Rite.
- #046
Ernest Borgnine's mother, Anna Borgnine, died in 1949 after a long battle with tuberculosis, only a few days before his first wedding.
- #047
In 1995, Ernest Borgnine toured the United States in a customized bus, "The Sunbum," to meet fans and see the country. The trip became the subject of the documentary Ernest Borgnine on the Bus (1997), directed by Jeff Krulik, best known for Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986). After returning from this bus tour, he came back to television as a co-star on The Single Guy (1995), one of the sitcoms that was part of NBC's "Must See Thursday" lineup, programmed between Friends (1994) and Seinfeld (1989) in the 1995-96 season. The series would be moved to Wednesday nights for its 1996-97 final season, one of the generally highest-rated shows to be canceled in its second season.
- #048
Ernest Borgnine trained and graduated as an actor, auditioned, and was accepted as an intern at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, VA. The theatre took its name from the director's practice, during the cash-strapped years of the Great Depression, of allowing audiences to barter goods for admission.
- #049
Ernest Borgnine's mother, Anna (Boselli) Borgnine, wanted him named after Hermes from Greek mythology. His father, Charles Borgnino, wanted his son named Effron.
- #050
Ernest Borgnine's parents were Charles B. Borgnino and Italian countess Anna (Boselli) Borgnine. Both were Italian immigrants.
- #051
In 1962, Ernest Borgnine was the last actor to join the ranks of other sitcom male lead stars such as John Forsythe, Andy Griffith, Danny Thomas, Alan Young, Robert Young, Fred MacMurray and Buddy Ebsen (whose sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) premiered just two weeks before Borgnine's) by starring in his own popular sitcom, McHale's Navy (1962).
- #052
Before becoming a successful actor, Ernest Borgnine worked a variety of factory and warehouse jobs.
- #053
Ernest Borgnine resided in Los Angeles, CA for more than 60 years, from 1951 to 2012. He lived in the house he bought in Beverly Hills, California (1965).
- #054
Borgnine's wife Donna was Yvonne De Carlo's stand-in on The Munsters (1964). Her brother was the stuntman Phil Adams.
- #055
Ernest Borgnine showed no interest in acting until he was twenty-eight years old.
- #056
Ernest Borgnine was a former member of the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC).
- #057
On June 12, 2011, he won the Best Actor award at the 6th Staten Island Film Festival for Night Club (2011); on October 16, 2011, he won Best Actor at the Golden Door International Film Festival; and on May 9, 2012, he won his final acting award, Best Actor at the Newport Beach Film Festival, for The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez (2012).
- #058
Ernest Borgnine was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6324 Hollywood Blvd. on February 8, 1960.
- #059
His marriage to Tony-winning Broadway legend Ethel Merman in 1964 lasted less than five months and became fodder for many stand-up comedians' routines.
- #060
Within only ten years, Ernest Borgnine went from his first acting work to winning the Oscar for Best Actor.
- #061
His family legally changed his name from Ermes Effron Borgnino to Ernest Borgnine in order to alter the different final letters of his name.
- #062
Ernest Borgnine made a special Oscars appearance at the 70th Annual Academy Awards (1998) and the 75th Annual Academy Awards (2003), joining the Oscar Winners Tribute sequence alongside other Oscar winners.
- #063
After being discharged from the United States Navy, Ernest Borgnine returned to his family's home in Connecticut with no job or direction to go back to.
- #064
Ernest Borgnine was the father of Sharon Borgnine (born August 5, 1965), Cris Borgnine (born August 9, 1969) and Diana Rancourt-Borgnine (born December 29, 1970) with Donna Rancourt. His daughter Nancee Borgnine (aka Gina Kemins-Borgnine) was born on August 18, 1952, with Rhoda Kemins.
- #065
Ernest Borgnine appeared in two films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: From Here to Eternity (1953) and Marty (1955). Both films won the award in the category.
- #066
Ernest Borgnine is mentioned in the song "Ernest Borgnine" on John Grant's 2013 album "Pale Green Ghosts".
- #067
Ernest Borgnine portrayed J. Edgar Hoover twice, first in Blood Feud (1983) and later in Hoover (2000).
- #068
Ernest Borgnine was cremated in the crematory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California. His ashes were later given to his family. Funeral directors left a memorial bench as a cenotaph for him.
- #069
Ernest Borgnine is best known to the public for his leading role as the title character in McHale's Navy (1962).
- #070
For 30 years, between 1972 and 2002, Ernest Borgnine marched as "Grand Clown" in Milwaukee's annual Great Circus Parade.
- #071
Ernest Borgnine was the commencement speaker at Lakeland College in 1997 and received an honorary doctorate in humane letters for his distinguished acting career.
- #072
His family moved to New Haven, CT, in 1923, when he was six years old.
- #073
Ernest Borgnine was survived by four children, his wife and a sister.
- #074
His younger sister, Evelyn Borgnine Velardi, lived in San Francisco, CA. She died in 2013, just 17 days short of her 88th birthday.
- #075
Ernest Borgnine was named Veteran of the Year by the Veterans Foundation.
- #076
Ernest Borgnine attended and graduated from James Hillhouse High School in New Haven, CT (1935).
- #077
According to his autobiography "Ernie," Ernest Borgnine had only three children: Nancee Borgnine with his first wife, Rhoda Kemins, and Sharon Borgnine and Cris Borgnine with his wife Donna Rancourt.
- #078
Ernest Borgnine is the father-in-law of Kim Borgnine.
Continue through the archive
Bad Day at Black Rockas Coley Trimble- The Poseidon Adventureas Rogo
- The Flight of the Phoenixas Trucker Cobb
- The Black Holeas Harry Booth
- The Vikingsas Ragnar
- All Quiet on the Western Frontas Stanislaus Katczinsky
- Deadly Blessingas Isaiah Schmidt
- Airwolfas Dominic Santini
- Jesus of Nazarethas The Centurion
- McHale's Navyas Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb kaydı
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work