Ernest Borgnine, 92: "I try to keep my mind going always. That is the thing that counts."

Los Angeles Times / BENJAMIN REED

Ernest Borgnine, who won the 1955 best actor Academy Award for his performance as a lovelorn butcher in the film Marty and is better known to a later generation of TV viewers as the PT-boat skipper on McHale’s Navy, will receive a Lifetime Achievement award at this year’s Rhode Island International Film Festival in early August.

Borgnine, 92, the son of an Italian countess, was born Ermes Effron Borgnino in Hamden, Conn. He has appeared in 199 movies, including From Here to Eternity, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch and The Poseidon Adventure. His latest is the 2008 film Another Harvest Moon.

He served in the Navy from 1935 to 1945, reaching the rank of Gunner’s Mate 1st Class. He returned to the Navy in 1962 as the skipper of PT-73 on the television series McHale’s Navy, which ran until 1966, and also starred in the 1964 movie version. In 1983 he returned to television in the series Airwolf, which ran for three years. Since 1999 he has been the voice of Mermaid Man on the TV cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants and in April appeared on the final episode of ER.

Borgnine is the only living person who has won a Best Actor Academy Award for a performance given prior to 1960. Marty is the oldest film with a Best Actor performance from someone still alive.