ROME, Feb. 13 -- Martin Balsam, a Hollywood character actor who appeared in more than 50 films and won a best supporting actor Oscar for 'A Thousand Clowns' in 1965, was found dead Tuesday in his room at a central Rome hotel. He was 76.
Police said Balsam's body was found by an employee of the Residenza di Ripetta hotel, but did not provide further details. The stocky actor, born in New York on Nov. 4, 1919, was a typical product of the 1940s generation that attended New York's Actor's Studio. Robust, but with a lugubrious manner and a seldom-seen smile, Balsam became the favored actor to play detectives, police and even jury members. He made his stage debut in 1941 in the New York production of 'Ghost for Sale' and went on to appear in theater productions of 'Macbeth,' 'Sundown Beach,' 'You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, ' for which he won a Tony Award in 1968, and 'Cold Storage,' which garnered an off-Broadway's Obie Award. Balsam made his screen debut in 1954 in 'On the Waterfront' with Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger. He appeared in some 50 movies over the next 40 years, including 'Twelve Angry Men,' 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' the original and the remake of 'Cape Fear,' 'Catch 22,' 'Tora, Tora, Tora,' 'The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three' and 'All the President's Men.' He may be best remembered for his small part as a victim of the deranged killer played by Anthony Perkins in 'Psycho' in which Balsam tumbled down a flight of stairs in a sequence that typified Alfred Hitchcock's surreal death scenes. Balsam also is known for playing Carroll O'Connor's restaurant partner and straight man in 'Archie Bunker's Place,' the 'All in the Family' spinoff series of the 1980s.
