Harry Guardino, 69; Actor on Stage, Screen and TV

Harry Guardino, the tough-talking actor who moved easily from films such as “Dirty Harry” to Broadway musicals including “Anyone Can Whistle” and “Woman of the Year” to the character Hamilton Burger on television’s popular “Perry Mason” series, died Monday. He was 69.

Guardino died of lung cancer in his Palm Springs home, said Mimi Weber, his agent, former manager and friend.

The popular Guardino, adept in comedy as well as drama, appeared less than two years ago at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts as a zany malapropism-spouting restaurateur in “Breaking Legs.”

“In the theater, there’s an end result for your efforts every night,” he once told The Times in discussing rewards of his various acting venues. “You do a movie, then wait a year before it comes out, and by then you’ve gone on to something else. In TV, you play a running role and go from one script to another with no time to sit back and see how it’s going.”

Asked why, then, he bothered with television, he replied with customary candor: “Money. . . . Artistic challenge? There isn’t any.”

The appraisal never affected his acting. He was nominated for an Emmy for a “Kojak” episode, was popular as Burger in the 1973-74 season of “Perry Mason,” had his own series as newsman Danny Taylor on “The Reporter” in 1964, starred on Showtime’s two-part cable drama “The Neon Empire” in 1989 and made guest appearances on series such as “Murder, She Wrote” and “Jake and the Fatman.”

After his Broadway debut in “End as a Man,” Guardino was nominated for a Tony for “One More River” and co-starred with Lauren Bacall for two years in “Woman of the Year.” His stage credits included “A Hatful of Rain,” “The Seven Descents of Myrtle,” “The Rose Tattoo,” “Natural Affection” and “Chicago.”

Guardino earned a Golden Globe for his performance in “The Pigeon That Took Rome,” a 1962 film starring Charlton Heston. Other film credits include “Dirty Harry,” “The Enforcer” and “Any Which Way You Can” with Clint Eastwood, “St. Ives” with Charles Bronson, “Houseboat” with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, “King of Kings,” “Hell Is for Heroes,” “Madigan” and “Lovers and Other Strangers.”

Born Dec. 23, 1925, in New York, Guardino started acting with a Police Athletic League group when he was in high school. During World War II, he joined the Navy and later spent time in the merchant marine.

“It was good for me, for psychological reasons,” he once said of his service stint. “I’d get all tied up and frustrated because I couldn’t make a go of it as an actor.”

He later studied in a New York dramatic workshop alongside Tony Curtis and Ben Gazzara. After a stint in Hollywood, mostly washing dishes and pumping gas, Guardino returned to the East Coast to understudy Gazzara in “A Hatful of Rain.” After Guardino toured with the show, he began getting offers.

Guardino is survived by his wife, Elyssa; two young sons, Paul and Gregory; a daughter, Michele, and son, Michael, from a previous marriage, two brothers and two sisters.

Funeral Mass is scheduled at 10 a.m. Friday at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Palm Springs.