Ernie Borgnine is the best!! I urge you to view his trip across the mid west plains in his motorhome. He took the trip with his son stopped in little towns and visited with the local people. Even stopped on the side of the road to talk to a farmer out in the field harvesting. You'll love it.
As an Italian American and WW2 vet it was ironic that Borgnine's breakthrough role would be playing an bigoted anti Italian sergeant. He probably saw prejudice in the service, but I'll bet that no one called him a "wop" more than once. Great actor and a legitimately nice guy.
Borgnine was a Sinatra fan long before they met filming FHTE, he even had named his daughter Nancee, after the song Nancy (With The Laughing Face) written by Phil Silvers & Jimmy Van Huesen, which was a hit for Frank. Being both from italian roots they became friends and when they wrote letters and Christmas cards to each other their signatures read Fatso and Maggio respectively. Although Borgnine has talked widely about Sinatra's dedication to charities and helping other actors in hard times (as was the case with Lee J Cobb and George Raft) he was too modest to mention his own contributions to those causes when Frank and others like Jerry Lewis asked him to lend a helping hand. Ernie was a very humble, generous and funny man, God bless him.
A treasure. So glad he kept his marbles and was able to do all of these wonder interviews and share his memories of all these people and that time in the movie industry.
What a very nice civilized man with a great sense of humor, it's a pity more American actors aren't more like Ernest a down to earth and great actor now left us but his great legacy is with us forever.
