George Kennedy, 91, Oscar winner

GEORGE KENNEDY, the veteran actor who built his early career playing heavies and won an Academy Award in 1968 for his supporting role as the tough Southern prison-camp convict who grew to hero-worship Paul Newman's defiant title character in "Cool Hand Luke," died Sunday in Boise, Idaho, of natural causes, said his grandson Cory Schenkel. He was 91.

In a more than 50-year screen career, the deep-voiced Kennedy appeared in dozens of movies, including "The Flight of the Phoenix," "The Sons of Katie Elder," "The Dirty Dozen," "Earthquake," "Cahill United States Marshal," "The Eiger Sanction," "Death on the Nile," and the "Airport" series of films.

In a distinct change of pace in the late '80s and '90s, he played Capt. Ed Hocken in the "Naked Gun" series of cop spoofs starring Leslie Nielsen as Detective Lt. Frank Drebin.

A World War II combat veteran, Kennedy spent 16 years in the Army before launching his career in Hollywood in the late 1950s. At 6-4 and 230 pounds, he was initially typecast as the bad guy in TV westerns and in films.

He went after Joan Crawford with an ax in "Strait-Jacket," savagely attacked Audrey Hepburn with a prosthetic hand hook in "Charade" and attempted to assassinate Gregory Peck in "Mirage."

Then came his breakout role in "Cool Hand Luke," the 1967 film starring Newman as the newcomer to the road gang at a prison .