'Cool Hand Luke' Star George Kennedy Dies at Age 91

The LA Times reports that George Kennedy, perhaps best known for his role opposite Paul Newman in COOL HAND LUKE, passed away on Sunday in Boise Idaho of natural causes. The Oscar winner was 91.

KENNEDY appeared in more than two hundred film and television productions. He is best remembered for portraying "Dragline" opposite Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture.

His eclectic roles also included Joe Patroni in Airport (for which he received his second Golden Globe nomination) and its three sequels, Police Captain Ed Hocken in the Naked Gun series of comedy films and corrupt oil tycoon Carter McKay on the original Dallas television series.

In 1998, he voiced Brick Bazooka for the film Small Soldiers. He then made several independent films before making a 2003 comeback to television in the soap opera The Young and the Restless, playing the character Albert Miller, the biological father to legendary character Victor Newman. In 2005, he made a cameo appearance in the film Don't Come Knocking, playing the director of an ill-fated western.

KENNEDY has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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