Legendary Actor Ernest Borgnine, Dead at 95 (Despite His Secret to Life)

Rest In Peace, Mr. Borgnine

July 8, 2012 - Legendary actor Ernest Borgnine died in Los Angeles today. He passed away while surrounded by family members at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Borgnine attributed his long life to his frequent masturbation. Perhaps he should have pleasured himself more often. Or, perhaps, he overdid it. We hope the L.A. County Medical Examiner will be able to determine that soon.

Borgnine was the voice of Mermaid Man in the Nickelodeon cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants” and he made a cameo in the 2010 action film “Red.”  In 2008, Borgnine was on the Fox & Friends morning show to promote his book. Asked what his secret to a long life was, he  whispered, "I masturbate a lot." Fortunately for historians, that was picked up by the microphone. 

Of course, Borgnine should be remembered for much more than his hobby of waxing the tadpole. He was an accomplished actor, after all.

McHale's Navy was a huge TV hit that starred Borgnine as a kind-hearted skipper of a PT boat. He protected his goofy crew of sailors from the stricter, higher ranking officers.

I'm not sure why Vivek Shankar called his character "buffoonish" in a column today at Bloomberg Businesweek. Perhaps Shankar never really watched the show, or misinterpreted a few short clips. In any case, Borgnine's PT boat skipper was cunning, clever and anything but buffoonish. See for yourself in the video below.

There are so many great Borgnine moments that it would require a full hour to begin to do justice to his career. No doubt that will happen soon, and it would be worth you time to watch it.

In the meantime, check out the last video below: Borgnine received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in January, 2011. Few actors have ever deserved it as much as Borgnine did, and few ever will.


"How fitting it was," wrote Access Hollywood, "that the actor who personified humility in his Oscar-winning performance in 1955’s 'Marty' would take the opportunity of the lifetime achievement award to remind his colleagues of that quality."