Yes, Ernest Borgnine Really Did See Jesus, Plus Other Fun Facts About the ‘McHale’s Navy’ Star
With his boxer’s mug, gravelly voice and wide, gap-toothed grin, Ernest Borgnine was far from a classic Hollywood leading man — but it didn’t hold him back a bit. From his first role as a Chinese gambler named Hu Chang in 1951’s China Corsair, to his defining role as lonesome butcher Marty Piletti in 1955’s Marty, to his final role as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants‘ Mermaid Man in the early 2000s, Borgnine crafted a remarkable career that spanned more than six decades.
A former decorated Navy man who brought that experience to the small screen in the Emmy nominated McHale’s Navy (1966), Borgnine was born Ermes Effron Borgnino to a Connecticut-based Italian immigrant family. His mother encouraged him to pursue acting when he returned home from the war and, he said, “10 years later, I had Grace Kelly handing me an Academy Award.”
Ernest Borgnine winning Oscar for MARTY with presenter Grace Kelly, 1956. Courtesy, Everett Collection
And his hits just kept coming, including the film classics From Here to Eternity (1953), The Wild Bunch (1969) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972), as well as a host of guest-starring roles on top TV series. To celebrate the multifaceted man who kept right on acting up until his death at age 95 on July 8, 2012, here are a few fun facts about the guy who captivated audiences every step of the way.
1 He really did see the face of Jesus
While playing Cornelius the Centurion in Franco Zeffirelli‘s star-studded 1979 miniseries Jesus of Nazareth, Borgnine, a devout Christian, had profound experience that he liked to share.
When it came time to film the mini’s rending crucifixion scene, Zeffirelli asked Borgnine if he’d mind playing to a marker on Jesus’ cross rather than hoist actor Robert Powell back into place. Borgnine agreed with one request. He asked that someone read Powell’s “They know not what they do” line. Zeffirelli volunteered to do it himself.
Everett Collection
“In my mind’s eye, I actually saw [Jesus’s] head come down and go over,” Borgnine said. “Tears as big as tea cups started coming out of my eyes. I just cried like you wouldn’t believe. … I was so emotionally carried away. And I looked and there was Anne Bancroft crying with me. She wasn’t even in the shot, but she was crying with me. Everybody’s crying.” Everybody except one.
Zeffirelli called the scene, and offered Borgnine a critique of his performance. “He said, ‘Ernesto … you think you could do it again with less tears?’” Borgnine chuckled.
2 Borgnine left Elvis starstruck
In 1956, 21-year-old Elvis Presley was making his debut film Love Me Tender on the same 20th Century-Fox lot where Borgnine was filming Three Brave Men. At the time, Elvis was still more of a teeny-bopper hero than a musical phenom. So when he heard the Oscar winner was a fan of his sound, Elvis asked his manager Col. Tom Parker to hand deliver a batch of his records to Borgnine’s dressing room, being too shy to do it himself.
According to the often-shared story, a grateful Borgnine told Parker to have Elvis stop by the next day. When the young star did come by, he heard “Hound Dog” blasting top volume and saw Borgnine had changed the name on his dressing room to “Elvis Borgnine.”
3 Borgnine & Charles Bronson were briefly captured by the Mexican national police
Everett Collection
According to Charles Bronson‘s Air Force profile, while he and Borgnine were in Mexico filming the 1954 war film Vera Cruz, the pair grew bored and decided to head into town on horseback to purchase some cigs. Problem was, the actors were still in their gunslinger costumes, which included pistols and bandoliers.
The look captured the attention of a truck full of Mexican “federales” who thought they were bandits on the lam and held them at gunpoint until someone from the set came to get them.
4 He and Ethel Merman were married for 32 days
Everett Collection
Borgnine and Broadway/ film star Ethel Merman got married in 1964. At the time, Borgnine had already been married twice and Merman three times, and both were enjoying flourishing careers. The latter brought the union crashing down, barely before it began. How it went down depends on whom you ask.
Borgnine famously told Access Hollywood that Merman threw a fit when everyone recognized him but not his new wife. To retaliate, she refused to share her medication when he, er, came down with a common traveler’s ailment. “By the time we got home, it was hell on earth,” he said, “and after 32 days I said to her, ‘Madam, bye’.”
According to Merman’s diary however, the situation was very different. Seems she didn’t take it well that American Express offered the pair a free honeymoon to the Far East in exchange for some publicity on behalf of McHale’s Navy star Borgnine. Merman thus assumed that Borgnine only married her for her money, her confidant Tom Cointreau told the New York Post.
5 Borgnine was the first-ever “center square” on The Hollywood Squares
Borgnine clearly got a kick out of being the subject of this bit of pop culture trivia, and he named host Peter Marshall and Borgnine’s fellow center square Paul Lynde as highlights of the experience.
“He was par excellence, that man,” Borgnine chuckled of Lynde. “He’d come up with [comedy] just like that. … It was a wonderful show.”
6 He coulda been the Godfather
THE DOUBLE McGUFFIN, from left, Ed Jones, Ernest Borgnine, Lyle Alzado, 1979, ©Mulberry Square/courtesy Everett Collection
It’s tough to imagine anyone but Brando as the title character in Francis Ford Coppola‘s 1972 epic The Godfather. But at the time, Paramount saw the mercurial actor as nothing but trouble and had a few bonafide Italians in mind.
“They wanted anybody but Brando,” Mark Seal, author of Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather, told NPR’s Neda Ulaby. “They wanted Ernest Borgnine or Carlo Ponti, the husband of Sophia Loren. Danny Thomas wanted to buy the project from Paramount and star in it himself.”
7 He almost took a beating for killing Sinatra in Eternity
Everett Collection
“When we first started Marty, the second night of shooting, I was walking along thinking over my lines, and I felt a tap on my shoulder,” Borgnine told The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg in 2009. “I turned around and there were a bunch of fellas standing there. And a fella said, ‘Ay, you da guy dat killed Frank Sinatra?’ I said, ‘Yeah … it was just a picture, but I killed him.’ And one of the guys spoke up in Italian and said, ‘Let’s beat the s—t out of him.”
According to an article on the AARP web site on the day of Borgnine’s death, the tale has a much happier ending. Once the tough guys realized Borgnine was also Italian, and that he and Sinatra were pals, they delivered their new friend wine and homemade pizza to the Marty set every day.
What was your favorite Ernest Borgnine role? Tell us in the comments below.
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