Jack Warden (born John Warden Lebzelter Jr. (September 18, 1920 â July 19, 2006) was an American character actor of film and television. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). He received a BAFTA nomination for the former, and won an Emmy for his performance in Brian’s Song (1971).
Warden worked as a nightclub bouncer, tugboat deckhand, and lifeguard, before joining the United States Navy in 1938. He was stationed for three years in China with the Yangtze Patrol.
In 1941, he joined the United States Merchant Marine, but he quickly tired of the long convoy runs, and in 1942, he moved to the United States Army, where he served as a paratrooper in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, with the 101st Airborne Division in World War II. In 1944, on the eve of the D-Day invasion (in which many of his friends died), Warden, then a staff sergeant, shattered his leg when he landed in a tree during a night-time practice jump in England. He spent almost eight months in the hospital recuperating, during which time he read a Clifford Odets play and decided to become an actor. Notably, Warden later portrayed a paratrooper from the 101st’s rivalsâthe 82nd Airborne Divisionâin That Kind of Woman.
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