Rod Steiger was well known for channelling his intense, brooding, and deep emotions into his method acting style, delivering highly authentic, memorable performances.
One such performance came in 1986 with The Pawnbroker, which saw Steiger receive a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Sol Nazerman, a German-Jewish university professor sent to a concentration camp along with his family.
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The Pawnbroker is set following the horrors of World War II and follows Nazerman, now running a pawnshop in East Harlem, New York, as he becomes increasingly embittered and pushes away those close to him.
Based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Edward Lewis Wallant, The Pawnbroker was directed by Sidney Lumet and starred Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sánchez, and Morgan Freeman in his feature film debut.
Directors Stanley Kubrick, Karel Reisz, and Franco Zeffirelli turned down the project, with Kubrick going as far as to say that he thought Steiger was not “all that exciting”.
However, he could not be more wrong. Not only did it launch Steiger’s career as an A-list actor, but it was revolutionary for several reasons.
The Pawnbroker was among the first American films to feature a homosexual character and nudity during the Production Code, and was the first film featuring a woman’s bare breasts to receive Production Code approval.
In 2008, the film was preserved in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Steiger became involved with the project in 1962, a year after the Wallant novel was published.
He was involved in an early rework of the film’s script and was paid just $50,000 for his performance because he trusted Lumet after working with him on the TV series You Are There.
Kubrick wasn’t the only director to have doubts about Steiger for the role, with Lumet himself preferring James Mason for it.
He was quoted as saying that he felt Steiger “was a rather tasteless actor. Awfully talented, but completely tasteless in his choices”, but ultimately went with the actor after being surprised during rehearsals by Steiger’s ability to portray the character’s repressed feelings.
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