Early practitioner of method acting who played the bandit Tuco in the spaghetti western and was awarded honorary Oscar in 2010 has died • Read an interview from 2010 with Eli Wallach and one from 2000 by Michael Billington

Eli Wallach, the award-winning American actor who helped bring the method to the movies, has died at the age of 98. His death on Tuesday was confirmed to the New York Times by his daughter, Katherine. In a career spanning six decades, he remains best known for his roles in The Magnificent Seven and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Born in Brooklyn, the son of Polish immigrants who ran the local sweet shop, Wallach served in the second world war and learned his craft at the Actors' Studio, studying alongside Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. He worked on Broadway in the post-war years and made his film debut with a Bafta-winning turn as a scheming cotton gin owner in Elia Kazan's controversial 1958 drama Baby Doll.

By rights, however, Wallach's arrival should have come sooner. He was the original choice to play the role of Angelo Maggio in the 1953 drama From Here to Eternity, only to bow out at the eleventh hour in favour of Frank Sinatra. Hollywood legend has it that Sinatra used his Mafia connections to secure the role, which would go on to win him the best supporting actor Oscar. Wallach, for his part, always denied this.

Wallach's went on to act with Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits and Audrey Hepburn in How to Steal a Million. He played a Mexican bandit in The Magnificent Seven and the vicious Tuco in the classic Sergio Leone spaghetti-western The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, alongside Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. Wallach only realised that he had been cast as the "ugly" when he sat down to watch the finished picture.

Wallach continued to find meaty movie roles, almost through to the end of his life. In later years he could be found in the likes of The Godfather 3, Mystic River and The Ghost Writer. In what would prove to be his final screen role, he cropped up as a venerable financier, accurately predicting economic meltdown in Oliver Stone's 2010 drama Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

More on Eli Wallach

• Peter Bradshaw's appreciation

• His career in clips

• Eli Wallach obituary

• Read an interview from 2010 with Eli Wallach and one from 2000 by Michael Billington