Ernest Borgnine: From Factory Worker to Academy Award Winner

In 1945, Ernest Borgnine returned to his parents' house in Connecticut after his Navy discharge without a job to go back to and no direction. He took a local factory job, but was unwilling to settle down to that kind of work. His mother encouraged him to pursue a more glamorous profession and suggested to him that his personality would be well suited for the stage. He surprised his mother by taking the suggestion to heart, although his father was far from enthusiastic. In 2011, Borgnine remembered, "She said, 'You always like getting in front of people and making a fool of yourself, why don't you give it a try?' I was sitting at the kitchen table and I saw this light. No kidding. It sounds crazy. And 10 years later, I had Grace Kelly handing me an Academy Award."Borgnine on "Marty" (1955): "It was made, believe it or not, as a tax loss -- it was made to lose money. They only wanted to make half of it, then junk it, put it on the shelf and that was it. But the tax man said, 'No, no, no -- you have to finish the picture, show it one time, and then you can take your tax loss.' So they poured all of $273,000 into the picture. I got $5,000 for the entire picture, and I would have done it for nothing because it was my first starring role."I remember leaving the set one time at 'Bad Day at Black Rock' (1955), and Spencer Tracy said, 'Hey, where are you going?' He said, 'If anybody leaves early it's me, I'm the star!' He was kidding, of course -- I hope he was anyway. And I told him, 'I've got to go down and read.' He wanted to know what I was going to do, and so I explained the picture to him and everything else. He said, 'Hmm. It sounds pretty good. All right, go ahead, you'll make it. Don't worry, everything will be fine.' The next year I beat him out for an Academy Award." (Wikipedia/NOLA.com)Happy Birthday, Ernest Borgnine!