‘Rocky’ Star Burt Young Dies At 83

Rocky star Burt Young died on Wednesday at 83 years old.

“Burt was an actor of tremendous emotional range,” wrote his manager Lynda Bensky in a statement following Young’s death. “He could make you cry and he could scare you to death. But the real pathos that I experienced was the poignancy of his soul. That’s where it came from.”

Young was born in Queens, New York, in 1940 and grew up in the tough Corona area before switching school districts.

He enlisted in the Marines at the age of 16 and has since admitted to his father “fibbing my age to get me in,” as he wrote in the foreword to Corona: The Early Years.

It was during his time in the Marines that he became interested in boxing, a sport that he pursued professionally for a brief time.

His breakout role as Paulie Pennino in Rocky earned him an Oscar nomination for supporting actor.

“I made him a rough guy with a sensitivity,” Young said of the character, whom he went on to reprise five more times. “He’s really a marshmallow, even though he yells a lot.”