George C. Scott was frequently cast as a gruff-but-heroic type in his long and distinguished career on stage and screen. He started on the New York stage, moved to television in its early days, and then began a film career that eventually earned him four Academy Award nominations. Scott won the Oscar as best actor for portraying U.S. general George S. Patton, Jr. in the epic 1970 World War II movie Patton. (He refused the award, decrying the competition of awards shows.) His other films include Dr. Strangelove (1964, directed by Stanley Kubrick, They Might Be Giants (1971, with Scott as a mental patient who imagines himself to be Sherlock Holmes), the caper comedy Bank Shot (1974) and the horror flick Firestarter (1984, with Drew Barrymore).

Extra credit: Scott was twice married to, and twice divorced from, actress Colleen Dewhurst (1960-65 and 1970-72); the actor Campbell Scott (b. 1961) is their son. George C. Scott later married actress Trish VanDevere... Scott's other Oscar nominations came from Anatomy of a Murder (1959, with Jimmy Stewart), The Hustler (1961, with Paul Newman) and The List of Adrian Messenger (1963, with cameo appearances by several stars, including Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Frank Sinatra).