Several months later, a chest wound caused his return to the US, where he recovered from both physical and psychological wounds in Army hospitals until being discharged as a Private First Class in January 1946, a month shy of his 23rd birthday.įor his service during World War II, Charles Durning was awarded the Silver Star Medal and three Purple Hearts. Durning was obliged to return with American troops to identify the bodies of his fellow prisoners. He and two others escaped, and the rest were murdered. Durning recovered from those wounds and was released from the hospital just in time to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, where he was taken prisoner.Ĭharles Durning was one of only three men to survive the infamous massacre of American POWs at Malmedy, Belgium. That day, he survived by killing the German with a rock in hand-to-hand combat. Several months later, in Belgium, Durning was stabbed eight times by a bayonet-wielding teenage German soldier. Despite suffering serious machine gun and shrapnel wounds, Durning killed seven German gunners to survive D-Day. He was the only man to survive a machine-gun ambush. As a 21-year-old infantryman, Private Charles Durning was in the first wave of soldiers to land on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Like Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy, Charles Durning was a highly-decorated soldier in World War II before he began an acting career. His family said he loved Christmas, and if he could have chosen a day as his last, this would be it. Charles Durning died on Christmas Eve, 2012, at age 89. He was honored at age 84 with a Life Achievement Award by the Screen Actors Guild. Then he showed his singing and dancing skills as the two-stepping Texas governor in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with Dolly Parton. In the 1970's he made a name for himself in The Sting with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Most of today's generation know Charles Durning, if they know him at all, as an actor.
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