Art Carney was a much-loved comic actor who won an Oscar for his performance in the 1974 film 'Harry and Tonto', in which he played a widower who is evicted from his New York apartment and embarks on a cross-country odyssey with his cat. Taking the Academy Award was no mean feat - his follow nominees were Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Albert Finney and Dustin Hoffman.

Over the course of his career, Carney repeatedly won critical acclaim for the depth and breadth of his talent, even when he appeared in movies that the critics did not like.

Born Arthur William Matthew Carney, the youngest of six sons, he loved doing impersonations as a boy and won a talent contest at school. He never took an acting course but talked his way into a lab with the Horace Heidt Orchestra and went on the road with them for three years, doing impersonations and novelty songs. He later landed bit parts on radio, specializing in roles that required dialects.

However, the Second World War interrupted his career. He was sent to France as an infantryman but was wounded in the leg by shrapnel almost immediately and was hospitalized for nine months. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

After the war, television roles started to come his way, notably the part of Ed Norton in the hit US series 'The Honeymooners', in which his ca-stor was Jackie Gleason. "The first time I saw the guy act" Gleason once said, "I knew I would have to work twice as hard for my laughs. He was funny as hell." Carney won praise for his work in a number of TV dramas during the 1950's, and later guested in series such as 'Star Trek' and 'All in the Family'. Apart from Harry and Tonto, his films included The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), The Silencers (1966), Gambit (1966), The Venetian Affair (1967) and The Late Show (1977).

In 1965, he appeared on Broadway in Neil Simon's comedy The Odd Couple, originating the role of the obsessively neat Felix Unger to Walter Matthau's slovenly Oscar Madison. It was during his run in that play that he had a breakdown caused by the end of his 25-year marriage to the former Jean Myers. He fought addictions to alcohol, amphetamines and barbiturates for many years, but had conquered them all by the time he made Harry and Tonto.

In the 1980's and 90's, Carney appeared in some lesser films, including The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) and Last Action Hero (1993), with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He also reached a new audience in the US thanks to TV reruns of The Honeymooners.

After his divorce from Myers, Carney married Barbara Isaac. When that marriage ended in divorce, he remarried his first wife. She survived him, as do their children, Eileen, Bryan and Paul.