Maybe it's because in the years leading up to his death in 2004, I had come to develop a real soft spot for my father that I continue to be deeply moved whenever I see a picture with/of Edward G. Robinson. The two men bore an uncanny resemblance. Physically, each was short and portly, full-lipped, round-headed, dark haired and dark eyed. Each man born in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire (Robinson in Romania; my father in Poland). Each man a representative of a bygone Yiddish culture. In film after film (whether in lead or supporting roles)--from Little Caesar to The Stranger to Soylant Green--Robinson plays a professional; a man who, when presented with a job, will--no matter what--insist on seeing the job through (in Double Identity, he sends his good friend to the gas chamber); a man who brings to his vocation an incredible mixture of reflection, feeling, and learning (Imagine any contemporary actor quoting Emerson in a mainstream crime movie, as Robinson does in The Stranger).
While he stood only 5'6", Robinson dominated virtually every scene he shared with other stars. Here was a man for whom the act of thinking was central to the act of acting, whose lines seem to come not from the mouth but from a profound intelligence. And so we conclude that for Robinson acting was a job, but like all great professionals he seems to have recognized a fact lost on so many of us: work is not an adjunct to one's life, it is one's life. Given the depth of this insights and the way Robinson translated it on screen, how could he not command an incredible cinematic presence?
Could he make it today: not on your life.
