Ben Gazzara

Acting

Ben Gazzara

Born 1930-08-28 · Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Biagio Anthony Gazzarra (August 28, 1930 – February 3, 2012), known as Ben Gazzara, was an American film, stage, and television actor and director. His best known films include Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Voyage of the Damned (1976), Inchon (1981), Road House (1989), The Big Lebowski (1998), Happiness (1998), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Summer of Sam (1999), Dogville (2003) and Paris, je t'aime (2006). He was a recurring collaborator with John Cassavetes, working with him on Husbands (1970), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) and Opening Night (1977). As the star of the television series Run for Your Life (1965-1968), Gazzarra was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and two Emmy Awards. He won his first, and only, Emmy Award for his role in the television film Hysterical Blindness (2002).

Acting credits

The Big Lebowski poster
7.8

Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker who only wants to bowl and drink White Russians, is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a wheelchair-bound millionaire, and finds himself dragged into a strange series of events involving nihilists, adult film producers, ferrets, errant toes, and large sums of money.

The Big Lebowski

1998

Dogville poster
7.7

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

Dogville

2003

The Thomas Crown Affair poster
6.8

Bored billionaire executive Thomas Crown decides to plan a robbery and assigns a professional agent with the right information to the job. However, Crown is soon betrayed yet cannot blow his cover as he’s fallen in love.

The Thomas Crown Affair

1999

Paris Je T'aime poster
6.8

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to choose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

Paris Je T'aime

2006

Buffalo '66 poster
7.1

Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.

Buffalo '66

1998

13 poster
5.8

A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

13

2010

Voyage of the Damned poster
6.0

A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.

Voyage of the Damned

1976

Road House poster
6.8

The Double Deuce is the meanest, loudest and rowdiest bar south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Dalton has been hired to clean it up. He might not look like much, but the Ph.D.-educated bouncer proves he's more than capable – busting the heads of troublemakers and turning the roadhouse into a jumping hot spot. But Dalton's romance with the gorgeous Dr. Clay puts him on the bad side of cutthroat local big shot Brad Wesley.

Road House

1989

Anatomy of a Murder poster
7.8

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

Anatomy of a Murder

1959

Convict Cowboy poster
6.5

New inmate Clay Treyton, doing time for fisticuffs, is sent to a Montana ranch where prisoners spend time working with horses. Encouraged by the warden, the men ride in prison rodeos, and murderer Ry Weston, an ex-pro horseman, is the team's top performer. Clay and Ry become friends, exchanging lessons about horses and life. But when prison black marketeers start leaning on Ry, the men have more than rodeos to worry about.

Convict Cowboy

1995

Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There poster
7.0

Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award-winning filmmaker Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. He soon learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print - but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while more vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words — and not a moment too soon — Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends, how they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theatre. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film.

Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There

2003

Happiness poster
7.4

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

Happiness

1998

The Spanish Prisoner poster
6.8

An inventor of a secret process suddenly finds himself alone as both his friends and the corporation he works for turn against him.

The Spanish Prisoner

1997

Summer of Sam poster
6.5

Spike Lee's take on the "Son of Sam" murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 centering on the residents of an Italian-American Northeast Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another.

Summer of Sam

1999

Shadow Conspiracy poster
4.9

Bobby Bishop is a special assistant to the President of the United States. Accidentally, he meets his friend professor Pochenko on the street. Pochenko has time to tell Bishop about some conspiracy in the White House but then immediately gets killed by an assassin. Now bad guys are after Bobby as the only man who knows about a plot. Bishop must now not only survive, but to stop the conspirators from achieving their goal. And he doesn't know whom to trust.

Shadow Conspiracy

1997

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie poster
7.0

Cosmo Vittelli, the proprietor of a sleazy, low-rent Hollywood cabaret, has a real affection for the women who strip in his peepshows and the staff who keep up his dingy establishment. He also has a major gambling problem that has gotten him in trouble before. When Cosmo loses big-time at an underground casino run by mobster Mort, he isn't able to pay up. Mort then offers Cosmo the chance to pay back his debt by knocking off a pesky, Mafia-protected bookie.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

1976

Opening Night poster
7.6

Actress Myrtle Gordon is a functioning alcoholic who is a few days from the opening night of her latest play, concerning a woman distraught about aging. One night a car kills one of Myrtle's fans who is chasing her limousine in an attempt to get the star's attention. Myrtle internalizes the accident and goes on a spiritual quest, but fails to finds the answers she is after. As opening night inches closer and closer, fragile Myrtle must find a way to make the show go on.

Opening Night

1977

The Bridge at Remagen poster
6.7

In March of 1945, as the War in Europe is coming to a close, fighting erupts between German and American troops at the last remaining bridgehead across the Rhine.

The Bridge at Remagen

1969

Night of 100 Stars II poster
6.8

This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was taped February 17, 1985, at New York's Radio City Music Hall, this sequel to the 1982 "Night of 100 Stars" special features 288 celebrities.

Night of 100 Stars II

1985

Tales of Ordinary Madness poster
6.0

Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.

Tales of Ordinary Madness

1981

Capone poster
5.9

Young Al Capone catches the eye of Johnny Torrio, a criminal visiting New York from Chicago. Torrio invites Capone to move to Illinois to help run his Prohibition-era alcohol sales operation. Capone rises through the ranks of Torrio's gang and eventually takes over. On top, he works to consolidate his power by eliminating his enemies, fixing elections to his advantage and getting rich. In his spare time, Capone courts the principled Iris Crawford.

Capone

1975

Quiet Flows The Don poster
4.3

With World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Russian Civil War as backdrop, it's an old-fashioned, blood-and-guts narrative, filled with earthly humor and a wealth of colorful characters. The story concerns the fluctuating fortunes of Grigory Melekhov, a young Cossack who is both a hero and a victim of the uprising.

Quiet Flows The Don

2006

When Michael Calls poster
5.7

A woman begins to receive ominous phone calls from her nephew, who died 15 years earlier. With each phone call, a family member dies. Will she be the next in line?

When Michael Calls

1972

Dogville Confessions poster
7.0

A documentary on the creation of Lars von Trier's fascinating drama Dogville starring amongst others Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgård, Ben Gazzara, Lauren Bacall and James Caan. Showcasing behind-the-scenes footage and providing a much deeper look inside the world of filmmaking including some moments of insight that are hard to believe.

Dogville Confessions

2004

Behind the camera