Warbird Information Exchange

He was just on the radio on Mark Simone's show here in NYC. What a great guy! I grew up on McHale's Navy, and being from a huge train-buff family, it was really cool to hear him say that one of his favorite roles was of "Shack" in "Emperor of the North Pole".

He sounds great, and is THE REAL DEAL. He'd done 6 years in the Navy and was out 3 months at the time of Pearl Harbor, so he went back in for 3.

He's been on O'reilly many times, back before Oreilly joined the "Natalie Halloway Media" and went downhill. When Borgnine was about 86, he was still driving his motor home all over the country (including Alaska) for a few months a year. He was saying how "Fuji" (the actor who played him on McHale's) went on to become an executive VP of Toyota! What a cast.

He's one Patriot I'd like to meet. He has a new book, "Ernie" that I plan to get. He wanted to call it "I don't want to set the world on fire, I just want to keep my balls warm" but they wouldn't let him! LOL!

Rich

Fine actor and American patriot, I too would like to meet him and shake his hand.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000308/bio

On February 5 2007, he received California's highest civilian honor, the California Commendation Medal. It was presented to him on the set of A Grandpa for Christmas (2007) (TV) by Major General William H. Wade II, Adjutant General and Commander of the California National Guard for a lifetime of exceptionally meritorious service as well as recognizing Borgnine's "heartfelt advocacy on behalf of military personnel and veterans on many fronts, including the California National Guard".

I have always enjoyed Ernest Borgnine's work- Certainly from the good old "McHale's Navy" days(even enjoyed his cameo in the amusing but dumb Tom Arnold movie version- which I enjoyed regardless...) Even when he played "Fatso Judson" in "From Here To Eternity" and got to kick the crap out of a few people...

The DVD version of the first seacon of "McHale's Navy" has a great interview -more of a reminiscence chat- with McHale(Borgnine), Gruber(Carl Ballantine), Ens. Chas. Parker (Tim Conway) Lt. Carpenter and Virgil(Forgive me, I can't think of their names at the moment!) A little on the forced side, but really great and interesting bit of TV history. Really worth watching. And Yes, they mention Fuji (Yoshio Yoda) went on to high position at Toyota. They didn't talk about "Ol' Leadbottom, Capt. Wallace Burton Binghamton" too much, but I suspect that was probably because of the sadness surrounding Joe Flynn's passing drowning in his own pool in the 1970's. But they do go into things about how each got his part, Borgnine's China Service, etc.

The DVD is available nationwide at Cracker Barrel Restaurant for, I think either $10 or $20. I am sure it is available elsewhere, but hey- you need to eat, right? lol

Robbie

thanks for the bio link. he's up on my list of favorites.

I enjoyed him in Bad Day at Black Rock.

He also played Vince Lombardi in a made-for-TV movie.

And haunted the cockpits of Eastern Airlines L-1011s as The Ghost of Flight 401!

And dont forget the character "Dominic Santini" from Airwolf!