Burt Young, Oscar-Nominated ‘Rocky’ Star, Dead at 83

Young played Rocky Balboa’s brother-in-law in the first six ‘Rocky’ films alongside Sylvester Stallone

Burt Young, the Oscar-nominated actor who played Paulie, Rocky Balboa’s brother-in-law in the film Rocky movies with Sylvester Stallone, has died, his manager confirmed to PEOPLE. He was 83 years old.

“Burt was an actor with a huge emotional range. He could make you cry and he could scare you to death,” Young’s manager, Lynda Bensky, said in a statement to PEOPLE. “But the real pathos I experienced was the poignancy of his soul. That’s where it came from.”

Young died Oct. 8 in Los Angeles, said his daughter, Anne Morea Steingieser The New York Timeswhich first reported his death on Wednesday.

Burt Young and Sylvester Stallone in 2014.

Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic)

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Young, who adopted the name Burt Young when he began acting, starred in more than 160 films and television shows. Over the course of his prolific career, he became a reliable character actor who could play mob tough guys or blue-collar workers just trying to make it.

One of those worker characters was Paulie, Rocky Balboa’s best friend and his wife Adrian’s brother. Young’s performance in the first Rocky the film earned him an Academy Award nomination and he would go on to reprise the role in each Rocky movie through Rocky Balboa in 2006.

Young told in 2009 Sweet science he was the only actor selected Rocky who did not have to audition. Stallone saw him in the MGM parking lot and told the former U.S. Marine he had to be in the movie, Young recalled.

“I thought the script had the cleanest street prose I’ve ever read,” Young said of Stallone’s Oscar-nominated screenplay in 2009. “Stallone’s not just a workaholic, he’s a genius who always looks three years ahead. He has a real eye for what’s going on in the world.”

Burt Young and Sylvester Stallone in ‘Rocky V’.

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The actor, who was briefly a professional boxer before studying acting with Lee Strasberg, began his film and television career in 1969. Rockyhe starred alongside James Caan in Cinderella Liberty, The Gambler and Elite assassins. Beyond Rocky films, Young also acted Once upon a time in America and episodes M*A*S*H, Beretta, Miami Vice, Columbo, The Sopranos and Russian doll.

“There are different movies that I like for different reasons,” Young said Media microphones in 2011 when he was asked what his favorite movie was. “Location is always a factor, as are the individuals involved. The creativity of the script is important along with the depth of the character and how far I can take that character. I really liked some of the papers I wrote. Of course I like the first one Rocky movie. I also enjoyed some of the past episodes Baretta which won Emmys and helped revive that show.”

James Gandolfini and Burt Young in “The Sopranos.”

hbo/getty

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Outside of acting, Young had a passion for painting that developed when he was 11 and won a park competition in New York, he told Long Island Pulse 2012. He found painting liberating because there was no censorship compared to movies.

“With so many films, my work ends up on the cutting room floor — every actor has that,” he said in 2012. “With my pictures, what are they going to do?”

Young is survived by his daughter, brother and grandson, reports the times. His wife Gloria died in 1974.

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