I was pleased when the picture was over I fit in all right and I spoke well enough as I said before, cause I was scared to death there for a minute. I mean, you're doing a scene with somebody like that or they're watching you or something, you'd better come up with something.

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.