Burt Young, who played Paulie in ‘Rocky’ franchise, dies at 83
Best known for his role as Sylvester Stallone's best friend in six of the "Rocky" movies, Young made a career out of playing coarse-but-complex characters, from mob bosses to disheveled working men.
Burt Young, the actor who played Paulie, Sylvester Stallone’s rough-around-the-edges best friend and brother-in-law in six of the Rocky movies, died on Oct. 8 in Los Angeles, his daughter Anne Morea Steingieser confirmed to The New York Times.
He was 83.
Young had amassed more than 160 film credits over his career, often the playing the same type of coarse-yet-complex characters, such as Curly in the 1976 Roman Polanski film Chinatown, a gangster in Once Upon a Time in America, and Big Joe, a striking worker struggling to accept his daughter’s pregnancy in Last Exit to Brooklyn.
Yet he is best known for his portrayal of Paulie Penino, an angry, foulmouthed meat packer who is abusive to his sister Adrian in the 1976 original but gradually softens over the course of the Rocky franchise. Young was nominated for best supporting actor at the 1977 Academy Awards, where Rocky took home three honors, including the one for best picture.
Born and raised in Queens, New York, as Gerald Tommaso DeLouise, Young served in the Marine Corps, fought as a professional boxer, and worked as a carpet layer before taking up acting, studying with legendary teacher Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.
As Young recalled it, he was the only actor who didn’t audition for Rocky.
“It was a great ride, and it brought me to the audience in a great way,” Young said in a 2020 interview with Celebrity Parents magazine. “I made [Paulie] a rough guy with a sensitivity. He’s really a marshmallow even though he yells a lot.”
Stallone took to the Instagram late Wednesday night to remember his on-screen best friend.
“You were an incredible man’s and artist, I and the World will miss you very much … RIP,” Stallone captioned a black-and-white photo of he and Young in character, which has been liked more that 311,000 times.
Later in life, Young took to painting, a lifelong pursuit that led to gallery shows and sales.
His wife of 13 years, Gloria, died in 1974.
Along with his daughter, Young is survived by one grandchild and a brother, Robert.
“Burt was an actor of tremendous emotional range. He could make you cry and he could scare you to death,” Young’s manager Lynda Bensky told People Magazine. “But the real pathos that I experienced was the poignancy of his soul. That’s where it came from.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.