At 90, Borgnine Stars in Christmas Film

LOS ANGELES — Ernest Borgnine could be taking it easy at 90, resting on laurels that include an Academy Award. But this year alone, he has made four made-for-TV or feature films — plus, his voiceover work as Mermaid Man on the animated hit "SpongeBob SquarePants."

The best-actor winner for the 1955 movie "Marty" believes "the best medicine for a man my age is to keep working."

Borgnine's latest role is in "A Grandpa for Christmas," airing Saturday on the Hallmark Channel and co-starring Jamie Farr and Katherine Helmond.

He plays a song-and-dance man who must care for a 9-year-old granddaughter he never knew he had after his estranged daughter is seriously injured in a car accident.

The movie brought back a favorite Christmas memory from Borgnine's childhood: Money was tight, so he and his sister knew their only gifts would be handmade by their mother; just before the holiday, a man who had owed Borgnine's father money for a long time repaid him the $14.

"My father could have bought so many things with that money back then," Borgnine said in statement from Hallmark Channel. "On Christmas morning my sister and I woke up and went downstairs to empty our stockings. I thought all they would have in them was the usual nuts and fruit, but in the bottom of each sock was $7. My mother and father were crying because they were so happy that we were happy. I never forgot that day."

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