page_title: Rod Steiger
section_title: B-movies and criticism (1982–1994)
hierarchical_section_title: Rod Steiger / Career / B-movies and criticism (1982–1994)
caption_attribution_description: Rod Steiger at the premiere of Sylvester Stallone's movie F.I.S.T., April 1978
context_page_description: Rodney Stephen Steiger was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. Cited as "one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars," he is closely associated with the art of method acting, embodying the characters he played, which at times led to clashes with directors and co-stars. He starred as Marlon Brando's mobster brother Charley in On the Waterfront, the title character Sol Nazerman in The Pawnbroker, and as police chief Bill Gillespie opposite Sidney Poitier in the film In the Heat of the Night which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
  Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York, the son of a vaudevillian. He had a difficult childhood, with an alcoholic mother from whom he ran away at the age of 16. After serving in the South Pacific Theater during World War II, he began his acting career with television roles in 1947, and went on to garner critical acclaim for his portrayal of the title character in the teleplay "Marty". He made his stage debut in 1946, in a production of Curse you, Jack Dalton!
context_section_description: After his open-heart surgery in 1979, clinical depression and health problems during the 1980s directly affected Steiger's career, and he often turned to B-movies, low-budget, independent productions and TV miniseries. He admitted that during this period he accepted "everything I was offered", and knew that many of the films he appeared in were not great, but wanted to demonstrate his strong work ethic despite his issues. He later regretted the poorer films in which he appeared during the 1980s, and wished he had done more stage work. He sank into an even deeper depression when he was not involved in acting, but it bothered him more that his acting career had taken a turn for the worse and was no longer challenging. The major studio producers were wary of his problems and considered him a liability. Steiger spoke about the experience to a younger colleague while advising: "Never tell anyone if you've got heart problems, kid. Never." His reputation as a fine character actor remained intact, and Joel Hirschhorn at the time considered his talent to be "as strong as ever".
  In 1984, Steiger starred as a detective assigned to investigate the murder of a Chicago psychoanalyst (Roger Moore), a man whom he detests from a previous case, in Bryan Forbes's The Naked Face. Richard Christiansen of the Chicago Tribune referred to it as a "wimpy suspense movie shot in Chicago in the fall of 1983, [that] doesn't do much good for the city or for anyone connected with it", and considered Steiger to be "acting in his high hysteria gear", who "snarls and whines and overacts". Steiger took a break from cinema in the mid-1980s, during which he appeared in the Yorkshire Television mini-series The Glory Boys (1984) with Anthony Perkins, and Hollywood Wives (1985) with Angie Dickinson. Steiger and Perkins were at loggerheads during the production of The Glory Boys. Perkins resented the fact that Steiger insisted on a bigger trailer and felt that Steiger was trying to steal scenes from him, while Steiger had thought Perkins "so jittery and jinxed by the chemicals he was taking" that he felt sorry for him and believed that he was jeopardizing the success of the film. Steiger also performed on Joni Mitchell's 1985 album Dog Eat Dog, where he provided the voice of an evangelist in the song "Tax Free".
  Steiger appeared in the Argentine-American film Catch the Heat (1987), a martial arts picture about a Brazilian drug baroness who smuggles drugs into the United States inside her breast implants. According to director Fred Olen Ray, it was pulled from distribution within a week of release. In 1988, Steiger and Yvonne De Carlo played a spooky elderly couple with developmentally delayed children in John Hough's horror film American Gothic. Universally panned by the critics, Caryn James of The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Steiger addresses the camera as if he were reciting Shakespeare, he is truly, straightforwardly, hilariously bad." During the last year of the decade he played authority figures, including a mayor in The January Man, and as Judge Prescott in Tennessee Waltz. Although Steiger admitted that his performance in The January Man was "way over the top", he enjoyed the experience, thereby marking a positive turning point after a period of clinical depression.
  In 1990, Steiger starred in Men of Respect, a crime drama film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. He played a character based on King Duncan, opposite John Turturro as Mike Battaglia (Macbeth), who plays a Mafia hitman who climbs his way to the top by killing Steiger's character. The film was critically panned, with Roger Ebert awarding it one star out of four, describing the concept as a "very, very bad idea". Steiger played another mobster, Sam Giancana, two years later in the miniseries Sinatra (1992).
  Steiger portrayed a reverend living in a small town in the American South in the macabre Merchant Ivory film production The Ballad of the Sad Café (1991), co-starring Vanessa Redgrave and Keith Carradine. The film met with generally lukewarm reviews, though it was entered into 
caption: Steiger in 1978 for the premiere of F. I. S. T.
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