I had read the novel and I had heard David Lean was going to direct it - and it came as a surprise to me because American actors, if given the chance, can do style as well as anybody and speak as well as anybody.

Marshal Bill Tilghman in Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981) and mob boss Sam Giancana in the TV miniseries Sinatra (1992). He never knew his father a vaudevillian who had been part of a traveling song-and-dance team with Steiger's mother (who subsequently left show business). Signing a studio contract at that time would "pigeon-hole" Steiger as to the roles he would later play and image portrayed on screen; those were two things Steiger objected to throughout his career.