Burt Young, 1940-2023
The Actor, Writer, Artist, Entrepreneur, and Boxer was Best Known for Portraying Rocky Balboa's Brother-In-Law Paulie
Burt Young, the actor who portrayed Paul “Paulie” Pennino in the six Rocky films, died on October 8, according to reports this week. He was eighty-three years old.
Born Gerald Tommaso DeLouise in New York, the veteran character actor was raised in Queens. Young studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio and had over one hundred fifty credits spanning over five decades, including Across 110th Street, Chinatown, Once Upon a Time in America, Back to School, Last Exit to Brooklyn, and episodes of The Rockford Files, Miami Vice, and the Alfred Hitchcock Presents revival in the Eighties. A veteran, he was a boxer in the Marines, winning thirty-two out of thirty-four matches (according to the Los Angeles Times). As a writer, his works included the screenplay Uncle Joe Shannon and the historical novel Endings. He was also an artist and a restaurateur.
The above would be more than enough accomplishment for any life. For better or for worse, it is those six credits in particular, highlighted above, for which he is by far the best known and most beloved.
Culture is now dominated by younger generations who do not understand the greater works they have inherited and are now mangling, bowdlerizing, sanitizing, mutilating and, in some cases, perverting. According to at least one report I have read, Rocky can never be made (or re-made) today because the “bad guy” is black. One of Rocky’s virtues is that it does not have a “bad guy”. Rival Apollo Creed, while a bit of a braggart (which he has earned), is an avuncular, congenial, good-natured, generous man, gentle and peaceful everywhere except the ring (where all of his opponents voluntarily joined him). In a way, he is the “prime mover” of the entire story, giving Rocky a shot when no one else would. He even follows all of the rules and referee’s instructions, unlike the dirty boxers in and out of fiction and cinema (cf. Million Dollar Baby). He is even better than Javert, the flawed but decent antagonist of Les Misérables (another misunderstood classic and target of re-boots). The entire series reminds (or tries to remind) a snarky, cynical culture that, paradoxically, most people are decent. But if there is a “bad guy” in any of the Rocky films, it is Paulie in the first film.
Young’s performance is first rate. He is first seen complaining (which he never really stops doing over the decades), irate over the footling problem that the mirror in a bar men’s room has been removed and he can’t comb his hair. The “worst” character in Sylvester Stallone’s screenplay is not evil, and certainly the titular character, a fine judge of character, sees something in him. But his constant whining is one of his least deleterious attributes. He berates his reticent, meek sister, Adrian, whom he has been exhorting his friend Rocky to court. During one of his many arguments and extended grievances, he calls her a loser (when she finally snaps and proudly asserts her dignity, it is one of the most cathartic moments among the six films). He is the only truly violent character in the film, swinging a baseball bat at his future brother-in-law, threatening to break both of his arms “so they don’t work for you!”.
Fortunately, like his sister, Paulie improves. Rocky III is one of the weaker films in the series, but one reason it is worth watching is that it dramatizes self improvement, not so much in the protagonist but in his family. Early in the film, a dissolute Paulie, at one of the lowest points in his life, throws his ubiquitous liquor flask at a Rocky pinball machine, shattering the back glass. His brother-in-law bails him out of a Philadelphia jail. After the usual arguments (and even some failed fisticuffs), Paulie finally laments that Rocky never invited him to join his boxing corner. Incredulous, Rocky tells him that all he had to do was ask him. Like his brother-in-law, all Paul Pennino needed was an opportunity. This is a turning point for the character and has more verisimilitude than many viewers might recognize. He never fundamentally changes his surface personality, but the viewer gradually sees a less irascible, more productive man from this scene forward. (Adrian’s soliloquy on the beach later in the film, giving her husband the encouragement he can’t quite find in himself, is the other highlight of an otherwise forgettable film. The Pennino siblings and their character arcs are one of many features of Stallone’s screenplays that deserve more attention.) Both Penninos are first-rate dramatizations of free will and self-improvement as well as the difficulties and limitations inherent in them, especially after a certain age. While Stallone wrote these scenes, perhaps his friend Young informed and inspired the writing as the two became friends over the years. What is certain is that no one could have portrayed Paulie better than Burt Young.
Active into this decade, Young had at least two projects in production at the time of his death. He will be missed by millions, but his best-known work will be remembered as some of the finest, most subtly instructive acting of his time.
I enjoyed this piece. Interesting to learn more about Young, and even more interesting to put Roxy characters into context. Thanks for writing this.