He darn near made it to 100 and at the time of his death he looked about 200, with every wrinkle and white hair earned the old fashioned way.  Though he passed away in 2005 at the age of 95, I still say let’s raise a glass and toast Marc Lawrence… who turns 99 today!

You know that face – you’ve seen it in a thousand movies and two thousand nightmares.  Lawrence rarely got to play Big Evil and was most often relegated to the farm team of second string villainy but he made a big impression nevertheless.  Descriptions of the actor in film guides and obituaries at the time of his death by heart attack are as hilarious (to us, anyway) as they are unflattering:  “hatched-faced”… “pock-marked”… “serpentine”… “oily-skinned.”  Born in Brooklyn, New York, on this day in 1910, the former Max Goldsmith studied acting with Eva LaGallienne and Michael Chekhov before heading west in 1932 and snagging a Columbia contract.  He made his film debut that year, on loan-out to Paramount for IF I HAD A MILLION, playing a lesser gangster opposite big stars Gary Cooper and George Raft.  Jewish by birth, Italian by association and sporting a distinctly Yiddisher nom de film, Lawrence cranked out over 100 character parts over the course of a 70 year career – that’s not a typo – stretching from THIS GUN FOR HIRE (1942) to THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974) and beyond.What’s remarkable about Lawrence is how easy he is to spot in things he only plays bits in, like one of the doomed gangsters making a stand against a government raid in ‘G’ MEN (1935) or in any of the Charlie Chan whodunits in which he appeared uncredited (but never unappreciated).  He was always great, weather nervous and weak (as “Sleeper” in THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL) or strong and venal (as Jeff Farnley in THE OX-BOW INCIDENT), as Lefty Landers in LADY SCARFACE (1941), as the stiff who gets the ball rolling in the Abbott and Costello romp HOLD THAT GHOST (1941), as one of Lawrence Tierney’s mob in DILLINGER (1945) and as a nameless but unforgettable goon in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971): pitching Lana Wood out of the window of a Las Vegas high rise hotel, Lawrence watches her splash safely into an Olympic size swimming pool before turning to Sean Connery’s 007 and deadpanning “I didn’t know there was a pool down there.”  It’s not his movie but Lawrence has s the best line in it.

Lawrence published an autobiography in 1991.   Long Time No See: Confessions of a Hollywood Gangster (the title was partially inspired by a remark allegedly made to Lawrence in Italy by exiled mafioso Lucky Luciano – this guy was connected!) is a sprawling but terse tale of the rise and fall (due to the HUAC hearings, for which Lawrence was to his enduring shame a friendly witness) of a Hollywood heavy, who fled the States to Europe and bounced back and forth for the rest of his long life, playing an infinity of heels, cads, shitters and sneaks.  The book details (briefly, of course) Lawrence’s involvement in the cult classic PIGS ( “In 1972, a decision was made to produce a film about pigs that eat people and the people then become pigs.”)  Lawrence also discusses (brusquely, of course) his being typed out of a role in THE GODFATHER (“They’re only using Italians,” Walter Matthau warned him) and of the friends who abandoned him when the HUAC spotlight turned his way.  (A loyal holdout was Lionel Stander, who said to Columbia Pictures president  Harry Cohn that he still palled around with “that Bolshevik” Lawrence because “Borscht is better than bullshit.”  )  I recommend the book (if you can find it) and the man.  Rent a Marc Lawrence movie today and Happy Birthday, you old scoundrel!