Prolific Stage and Screen Star Eli Wallach, 98, Dies

Eli Wallach, the legendary actor who appeared in over 80 films and a variety of stage productions, died Tuesday at the age of 98, the New York Times reported.

Eli Wallach, the legendary actor who appeared in over 80 films and a variety of stage productions, died Tuesday at the age of 98, the New York Times reported.

Though probably best known for his role in westerns (spaghetti or otherwise) like The Magnificent Seven and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Wallach had a long and varied career. He made his last movie appearances in 2010, when he was in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer.

Wallach was married to the actress Anne Jackson, who he met, per the Times, during a 1946 production of Tennessee Williams' This Property Is Condemned. They appeared in a number of stage productions together including the Broadway debut of  Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros.

Wallach was famously never nominated for an Oscar, receiving an honorary award in 2010. You can watch his speech from the Governors Awards here. "I don't act to live, I live to act," he said.

And here's a sampling of some of his performances. His first screen performance was in Elia Kazan's film of Tennessee WIlliams' Baby Doll.

And here he is in The Magnificent Seven:

And The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

And finally, in one of his later performances, here he is counseling Kate Winslet in Nancy Meyers' The Holiday, playing a relic from Hollywood's Golden Age.