Veteran actor Ben Gazzara has died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 81.
Forging a stage and screen career marked by intense and enigmatic performances, Gazzara was known as a strong proponent of method acting.
Named "most promising young actor" in the New York critics' awards for his debut stage role in End As A Man, in 1953, he went on to carve a 60-year career filled with Broadway stage, TV and film highlights.
The actor, who was born in New York to Sicillian parents, made his movie debut in 1957's The Strange One, Calder Willingham's drama centring on brutality within a military school, but his breakthrough came alongside James Stewart in Otto Preminger's Anatomy Of A Murder.
He spent much of the next two decades flitting between stage, screen and television - most notably a long-running TV role as a terminally ill workaholic lawyer trying to make up for lost time in Run For Your Life.
In the 1970s, he teamed up with his friend, director John Cassavetes, for Husbands, The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie and Opening Night - the three films he named as the "favourites" of his long career.
He married his third wife, German-born Elke Krivat, in 1982, whom he credited with putting "the romance and hope back in my life".
Although not appearing in many films during the Eighties, three-times married Gazzara's screen career hit a purple patch again in the Nineties, when he appeared a slew of movies, including The Big Lebowski, Happiness and Summer Of Sam. He went on to star in roles through into the Noughties - including Dogville and Looking For Palladin - despite being diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999 and suffering a stroke in 2005.
At the time of his death, he was filming the Mafia movie The Wait, and was due to start work on the drama Max Rose, with Jerry Lewis and Claire Bloom.
He is survived by Krivat, her daughter Danja, whom he adopted, and his daughter Elizabeth, from his marriage to Janice Rule.
