More often than not, he came off as a brassy New Yorker (he grew up in Brooklyn) who fought back from too many beatdowns with a know-it-all personality and honking bravado. Yet he could also bring dramatic heft to a role. His best known film was 1955's "The Man With the Golden Arm," an early drug drama based on a Nelson Algren novel, starring Frank Sinatra as a drummer with an addiction. Mr. Stang played Sinatra's needy, insistent shadow, named Sparrow, who sticks by the musician only to be abandoned in the final scene.