Burt Young

It’s quite easy, and even understandable, to reduce the career of Burt Young down to his most famous role: Paulie Pennino, the best frenemy of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa in the long running saga of an underdog palooka who made good in the ring. No one would ever argue that Paulie wasn’t Burt Young’s most famous and signature part.

But in taking a closer look at Young’s fifty plus year resume, I was surprised to see how many quality credits surrounded the Rocky films. Young’s first noteworthy film was 1972’s gritty Across 110th Street. A cop drama starring Yaphet Kotto and Anthony Quinn. While Bobby Womack’s title song has outlasted the hard boiled film that inspired the tune (thanks to Tarantino’s use of the Womack track in Jackie Brown), the film holds up as a quality policier. 

Young followed up his small part in 110th with a more significant role as ‘Curly’ in Roman Polanski’s film noir classic Chinatown two years later. In a film where every on screen second was memorable, Young proved to be up to the task of meeting the standards of his magnificent surroundings. Chinatown is also the film where you can see the Burt Young aesthetic coming to the fore. 

Short, built like a fire hydrant, uncouth, and rough around the edges, Burt Young in very short order found his stock and trade. He would ply his specific skill set over the entirety of his career in fine to great films like The Gambler and Once Upon a Time in America, Uli Edel’s relentlessly grim Last Exit to Brooklyn, as well as far less memorable productions that at least made you say, “Hey, that’s Paulie!”

A particular favorite of mine is The Pope of Greenwich Village, Stuart Rosenberg’s neighborhood crime drama starring a peak-level Mickey Rourke. As Bed Bug Eddie, Young plays a mid-level crime boss who has Rourke’s best friend Paulie (a manic Eric Roberts) relieved of his thumb when he can’t repay his debts. Not to be satisfied with dismemberment, Eddie also makes Paulie serve him coffee in his office. Paulie takes revenge on Bed Bug Eddie by spiking his coffee with lye, which leads to one of the greatest death scenes in cinematic history. As the poison hits Eddie’s system, he hacks, his eyes get big, and like a man flailing in the water while drowning, he runs right through a glass door before collapsing on the street and succumbing to the tainted elixir. It’s a startling moment that doesn’t feel like acting at all. In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking that someone might have really wanted to call a paramedic after viewing Young’s fully-committed run through that door.

On rare occasions, Young was given the opportunity to show a lighter side. As Rodney Dangerfield’s bodyguard in the wonderfully silly ‘80s comedy smash Back to School, Young’s every deadpan line delivery was choice. He also briefly starred in a sitcom with Corey Haim called Roomies about a retired Marine vet (which Young was in real life) who decides to go back to college. I remember thinking it funny at the time, and while I doubt the jokes hold up, I’m willing to bet Young’s work did. 

Of course, when it comes to Burt Young, all roads lead back to his Paulie in the first six Rocky films. I often wonder what notes director John G. Avildsen gave Young on set. I’m guessing it was something like, “Be the grimy, pain in the ass uncle that no one wants to sit across from at Thanksgiving.”

If so, did Young ever mail the part in spades. Unkempt, over-served, and looking like he’d never seen a comb, or did more than a quick underarm wipe before leaving the house (I always found it funny that one of Paulie’s most famous lines was “I don’t sweat you!,” when Paulie always looked like he was sweating), Paulie Pennino was a miserable person. But over the course of the first two Rocky movies (Young was kind of on autopilot for the remaining Rocky films), you were able to see a bruised and broken heart beneath that mean-spirited exterior. 

And man, did Young ever take the risk of being seen as completely vile—especially in the first film. Young was awarded an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Supporting Actor by the Motion Picture Academy for Rocky, and I think the scene that earned the nod for him was the emotionally brutal screaming match he has with his sister and roommate Adrian (a terrific Talia Shire) who also happens to be in love for the first time in her life with Stallone’s Rocky. 

A disheveled baseball bat-wielding Paulie tears into his home physically, and into Adrian verbally about how she ruined his life, and when Adrian finally stands up for herself, Paulie sinks as low as he can go by essentially calling her a whore because “You’re busted! You’re not a virgin!” It’s as wrenching as any scene you will find in any lower working class drama, from those starring Marlon Brando to the “kitchen sink” British dramas of the ‘50s and ‘60s. 

What makes Young’s performance all the more remarkable is that he somehow finds a way to let the audience forgive him. Paulie is all but broken by life. He knows he’s never amounted to anything and that his fate is likely sealed. That he will probably die alone in a run down rental unit, with dust in every corner, dirty dishes in the sink, and a flask that will fall from his stubby fingers just as his heart gives out. 

Young showed us that there was a person inside of Paulie who was carrying the deep burden and pain of failure. But much like his best friend Rocky, Paulie was able to pick himself up from the canvas and soldier on through life, eventually proving he could become a truly good (if very imperfect) friend and brother. 

After Young’s final performance in a Rocky film (2006’s Rocky Balboa), Young turned up occasionally in a project of note. Tom McCarthy’s terrific coming of age film Win Win, a single (but memorable) episode of the Sopranos, and a two episode stint on Russian Doll are perhaps his best late career credits. 

In looking into Young’s life for this remembrance, I also learned that he was a talented artist whose paintings had been on display in many a high-toned gallery throughout the world. It seems that Young was more than the palookas he played on screen, which is really saying something, because he made those grimy, foul-mouthed schmos into art too. 

Burt Young died on October 8, 2023. He was 83 years old.