US actor Ben Gazzara dead at 81

NEW YORK: US actor Ben Gazzara, who enjoyed a long and successful career on Broadway and in Hollywood, died of pancreatic cancer on Friday in Manhattan, his attorney said. He was 81.

The lawyer told reporters that the actor died at a Manhattan hospital.

During his 60-year Hollywood career, the actor appeared in more than 100 films and TV movies, including "Husbands," "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" and "Opening Night."

He won an Emmy Award for his supporting role in the 2002 HBO drama "Hysterical Blindness."

He also received an Emmy nomination for the 1985 TV movie "An Early Frost," in which he played a middle-age husband who learns that his son is gay and dying of AIDS.

Gazzara, who starred in films, television and on the stage, played Brick in the original Broadway version of Tennessee Williams' "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," originating a tough-guy persona that he would cultivate on the big screen.

In his later years he worked with the Coen brothers in "The Big Lebowski," in 1998, in the television series "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," and more recently in many movies made for television. (AFP)