At Carney, who won an Academy Award for his earnest portrayal of a homeless elderly man in Harry and Tonto (1974), but is more fondly remembered as Ralph Kramden's sewer-worker pal Ed Norton in the classic sitcom The Honeymooners, died on November 9th at his home in Chester, Connecticut. He was 85. The cause of death was not disclosed, but he had been in ill-health for some time.

Born Arthur William Matthew Carney on November 4th, 1918, in Mount Vernon, New York, he was the youngest of six sons of a well-respected newspaperman and publicist Edward Carney. Although, by his own admittance, very shy and introverted as a child, Carney displayed a talent for mimicry and by grammar school was entertaining family members and classmates with his impressions of Edward G. Robinson, Jimmy Durante and even Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After he graduated high school in 1937, Horace Heidt, an orchestra leader who had a very popular radio show in the late '30s, hired Carney as an announcer and MC. He served with Heidt for four years, and even had a bit part with Heidt's band in the minor musical Pot o'Gold (1941), which starred James Stewart and Paulette Goddard. The U.S. Army interrupted his career when he was drafted during the Second World War; he suffered a leg injury during the 1944 allied invasion of Normandy when shrapnel struck him in his right thigh. The wound shortened his right leg by nearly an inch, causing a slight limp for the rest of his life.

After the war, Carney returned to radio where he found substantial work in numerous genres: daytime serials, mysteries, spot recordings, and children's shows, political programs and comedies. In 1947, he scored a big break when he was cast as Charlie, a goofy but lovable doorman in The Morey Amsterdam Show. Carney made his television debut the following year when the show moved from CBS Radio to the short-lived DuMont television network. After the show's cancellation, Carney stuck around the network and played various characters in The Cavalcade of Stars, a big-budget comedy-variety show that was hosted by an up and coming comic - Jackie Gleason. Gleason used Carney in a variety of sketches, but none more popular then in 1950, when they teamed up as Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton for their first appearances as the Honeymooners.

Gleason moved his variety show to CBS in 1952, and The Honeymooners was the program's flagship sketch for the next three years; and eventually became a half-hour series from 1955-56. As the "underground sanitation expert" (read: sewer worker) Carney's characterization of Ed Norton, complete with a smudged T-shirt, open vest and upturned pork-pie hat, became one of the most memorable sidekicks in sitcom history. His signature greeting "Hey, Ralphie boy!" and good-humored mugging became the perfect foil for Gleason's bellowing, aggravated Ralph Kramden, and Carney earned four Emmy awards (1953-56) during the shows initial run.

By the late '50s, Carney began to expand his acting range with a series of dramatic appearances on television: Playhouse 90, Studio One and a memorable turn as an alcoholic department store Santa Clause who must fill in for the real deal in "Night of the Meek", from the popular series, The Twilight Zone. Soon, Broadway was calling and Carney starred in the hit comedy Take Her, She's Mine (1962-63); and a bigger stage success, Neil Simon's smash comedy The Odd Couple (1965) playing the ever fussy Felix Unger opposite Walter Matthau's cheerfully disheveled Oscar Madison. Although the play earned rave reviews, Carney's personal life was in turmoil. Suffering from both alcoholism and marital problems, he came close to a nervous breakdown. He excused himself from the run of The Odd Couple and checked into a psychiatric care center in Hartford, Connecticut, where he remained for nearly half a year.

By the early '70s, Carney's star had dimmed considerably, and he found himself making guest appearances on a series of variety shows: The Carol Burnett Show, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and Tony Orlando & Dawn. Few would have thought that Carney's best roles would lie just ahead, but good fortune came his way when Paul Mazursky cast him as Harry Cooms, a 72-year-old, retired school teacher who makes a cross-country road trip with his cat (Tonto) after he is evicted from his New York apartment building in the episodic film Harry and Tonto (1974). It was Carney's first lead role, and his restrained, sympathetic take as an elderly loner (keep in mind he was only 54 at the time of casting) who retains his humor and dignity despite a series of personal setbacks, drew critical praise from all quarters, and despite tough competition that year for the Best Actor Oscar race: Jack Nicholson (Chinatown), Al Pacino (The Godfather Part II), Dustin Hoffman (Lenny) and Albert Finney (Murder on the Orient Express), it was Carney who walked away with the prestigious acting honor.

The next few years would be a fruitful time for this fine actor, as Carney's roles were consistently varied and interesting: a fundamentalist preacher turned lawman in the drive-in hit W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975); a guilt stricken bystander who fails to call the police when he hears the crying pleas of a young woman in the chilling telefilm Death Scream (1975); scoring perfect chemistry with Lily Tomlin as an aging private eye in the superb film noir homage The Late Show (1977); and alongside Lee Strasburg and George Burns as aging bank robbers in the amusing comedy Going in Style (1979).

Carney slowed down his schedule considerably by the '80s, but he made some interesting appearances in two telefilms: Terrible Joe Moran (1984) with James Cagney, for which he won another Emmy Award; and the Depression-era caper comedy Izzy and Moe (1985), which reunited him for the last time with his old friend, Jackie Gleason. His final film feature appearance was a small role in Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Last Action Hero (1993). In October 2003, just a few weeks before he passed away, he was inducted in to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Hall of Fame. He is survived by his wife, Jean; two sons, Brian, and Paul; a daughter, Eileen; a brother, Fredrick; six grandchildren; and one great grandson.

by Michael T. Toole