Eli Wallach, who lit the stage and screen on fire with his iconic performances for over six decades, has died. The actor, who was best known for roles in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and The Magnificent Seven died Tuesday at the age of 98.

His daughter, Katharine, confirmed the news to The New York Times. She did not give further details.

Wallach was born in Brooklyn on Dec. 7, 1915 and graduated from the University of Austin in Texas. He later went back to New York to get a master’s degree in education at City College. After studying acting, he joined the Army and served as a medic in World War II.

Upon his return, he studied with Lee Strasberg, refining method acting before hitting Broadway. He made his stage debut in Skydrift in 1945. During that production, he met his Anne Jackson, his wife of 66 years.

He began a long relationship with Tennessee Williams material in 1951, when he starred in the first production of The Rose Tattoo and earned a Tony. In 1956, he made his presence known in Hollywood with his stunning performance in Elia Kazan’s Babby Doll, based on a Williams story.

That began a long career splitting time between the stage and screen. He scored his best known roles in John Sturges’ 1960 film The Magnificent Seven as the villain. He then played the wild Tuco in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly alongside Clint Eastwood in 1968. Needless to say, his character was The Ugly of the title.

While his first love was the stage, he worked with countless talent in Hollywood. He appeared in John Huston’s The Misfits, the final film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Decades later, he worked with Francis Ford Coppola and Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III. In 2010, he starred in both Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer.

Amazingly, Wallach has 167 film and television credits to his name. Despite that work, he never received an Oscar nomination, only earning an honorary award in 2010, just before he turned 95.

“As an actor I’ve played more bandits, thieves, warlords, molesters and mafioso that you could shake a stick at,” Wallach said when he received the award, notes The Hollywood Reporter. Officially, the Academy honored him for being “the quintessential chameleon, effortlessly inhabiting a wide range of characters, while putting his inimitable stamp on every role,” but that doesn’t even begin to describe a career that stretched from Broadway to Hollywood.

image courtesy of Roger Wong/INFGoff.com