Sydney Greenstreet - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Greenstreet suffered from diabetes and Bright's disease, a kidney disorder. Five years after leaving films, Greenstreet died in 1954 due to complications from diabetes. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California in the Utility Columbarium area of the Great Mausoleum, inaccessible to the public. He was survived by his only child, John Ogden Greenstreet, born out of Sydney's marriage to Dorothy Marie Ogden. John Ogden Greenstreet died 4 March 2004 at age 74.

Sydney is the great-uncle of actor Mark Greenstreet.

An episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "The Big Goodbye" has holographic villain called Cyrus Redblock, played by Lawrence Tierney, whose surname is an obvious reference to Greenstreet's surname and whose character is a reference to Greenstreet's character Kasper Gutman (The Fat Man) in The Maltese Falcon.

Greenstreet was partially the inspiration for the Jabba the Hutt character in Return of the Jedi (1983). The Marvel Comics crime boss The Kingpin was based on Greenstreet's appearance.

Physicist Robert Serber stated in his memoirs that his nickname for the Nagasaki atomic bomb, "Fat Man", was inspired by Greenstreet's "Kasper Gutman" character in The Maltese Falcon.