Rod Steiger received his first film roles in the early 1950s. His first major one was in Teresa, but his first lead role was in the TV version of Marty. The movie version, however, had Ernest Borgnine in the lead and won him an Academy Award. Steiger's breakthrough role came in 1954, with the classic On the Waterfront. Since then he has been a presence on the screen as everything from a popular leading man to a little-known character actor. Steiger made a name for himself in many different types of roles, from a boxer in The Harder They Fall to the title character in Al Capone. He was one of dozens of stars in the epic World War II film The Longest Day. In 1964 he received his second Oscar nomination for The Pawnbroker. The next couple of years he was at the height of his powers. In 1965 he starred in the dark comedy The Loved One, and in David Lean's epic Doctor Zhivago. In 1966 he starred in the _"Play of the Month" (1965) episode "Death of a Salesman" as "Willy Loman" in the TV version of his stage play "Death of a Salesman", but in 1967 he landed what many consider his greatest role: "Sheriff Bill Gillespie" in In the Heat of the Night, opposite Sidney Poitier. Steiger deservedly took home the Best Actor Oscar for his work in that film.

He took another controversial role as a man with many tattoos in The Illustrated Man and as a serial killer in the classic No Way to Treat a Lady. After that he seemed to have withdrawn from high-profile movies and became more selective in the roles he chose. He turned down the lead in Patton and also in The Godfather. Among his more notable roles in the 1970s are Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Lolly-Madonna XXX, as Benito Mussolini in The Last Four Days, Portrait of a Hitman, Jesus of Nazareth, F.I.S.T and The Amityville Horror. He starred in the critically acclaimed The Chosen with Robby Benson and Maximilian Schell, perhaps the highlight of his 1980s movie career. Steiger increasingly moved away from the big Hollywood pictures, instead taking roles in foreign productions and independent movies. As the 1980s ended, Steiger landed a role as the buttoned-up New York City Chief of Police in January Man.

Steiger was seriously affected by depression for 8 years. As he returned to the screen in the late 1990s he began creating some of his most memorable roles. He was the doctor in the independently-made movie Shiloh, about an abused dog. He was the crazed, kill-'em-all army general in Mars Attacks! who always called his enemies peace-mongers. He took a small part as a Supreme Court judge in The Hurricane and as a preacher in the badly produced film End of Days. He was still active in films moving into the new millennium.
He was offered the title role in the movie, Patton, but refused it, saying "I'm not going to glorify war". The role was then given to George C. Scott, who won the Oscar for it. Steiger calls this refusal his "dumbest career move". On April 10, 1997, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His star is located at 7080 Hollywood Blvd. He has a daughter with Claire Bloom, and a son with Paula Ellis. Received the Gift of Life Award after tirelessly speaking out against the social stigma against mental disease, from which he suffered for many years. His daughter, Anna Steiger, is an opera singer. He had an operatic voice; however, he had no ear for keeping in the same key, rendering his singing voice almost useless. He's always said that the favorite of all his films was The Pawnbroker. Enjoyed playing historical figures. Is listed, as of April 29, 2003, as the Centre of the Hollywood Universe by the University of Virginia's Oracle of Kevin Bacon. He can be linked to any other movie actor in the classic Kevin Bacon-Game style in an average of 2.651 steps. Served in the United States Navy in the Pacific during World War II. Steiger, who originated the role of "Marty" in the eponymous TV production Marty, said that he turned down the role in the 1955 movie production as the Hill-Hecht-Lancaster Productions contract would have bound him for years. Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster, on their part, said that they did not want to cast Steiger as they felt the public would not go for the same actor that they had seen for free on TV. He told Robert Osborne during an interview on Turner Classic Movies that when he was in the Navy during World War Two, he used to sing when it was his turn to stand watch on-board ship. The ship's captain, overhearing him one night, put a stop to his impromptu performances. After he played Jud Fry in Oklahoma! (1955), producer David O. Selznick wanted to sign him to a long-term contract and possibly star him in the lead of his proposed remake of Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" opposite David O. Selznick's wife, Jennifer Jones. "But I told him that I must have the right to chose my own mistakes", Steiger told his biographer, Tom Hutchinson. "His face fell - he couldn't believe anyone would refuse him. Neither could my agents!" Most of the solo shots of Steiger during the famous taxicab scene in On the Waterfront were done after Marlon Brando had left for the day. Marlon Brando had it in his contract that he could finish shooting before the normal quitting time so that he could make his daily session with his psychiatrist. Steiger was deeply hurt and annoyed at Marlon Brando's rudeness and lack of courtesy to a fellow actor, as it was customary for the other actor to feed an actor being shot in closeup their lines or to just be there so the other actor would have the other character to play to. Steiger used his negative emotions to enhance his performance, and though he paid tribute to Marlon Brando as a great actor, he personally loathed him thereafter. Director Elia Kazan stood-in for Marlon Brando in the back of the cab so Steiger would have someone to emote to. Shortly before his death, Steiger had undergone surgery for a (presumably malignant) gall bladder tumor. Campaigned vigorously for a role in The Godfather, which began shooting in early 1971, three years after Steiger had reached the top of his craft, receiving the Academy Award for Best Actor his role as the sheriff in In the Heat of the Night. Surprisingly, the role Steiger wanted was not the title role of Don Vito Corleone (eventually played by his On the Waterfront co-star Marlon Brando, but the role of Michael Corleone, the Don's youngest son. Paramount executives found his desire to be bizarre as he was much too old for the part and turned him down without even a screen-test. Won the part of Viktor Komarovsky in Doctor Zhivago only after two other actors turned the part down. After a month went by with Marlon Brando failing to respond to director David Lean's written inquiry into whether he wanted to play Komarovsky, he offered the part to James Mason, who was a generation older than Brando. Lean decided on Mason, who initially accepted the part, as he did not want an actor who would overpower the character of Yuri Zhivago (specifically, to show Zhivago up as a lover of Lara, who would be played by the young Julie Christie, which the charismatic Brando might have done, shifting the sympathy of the audience). Mason eventually dropped out and Steiger accepted the role. He was honored with being chosen as one of AFI's 50 stars of the second half of the 20th century.