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Dennis Farina
Dennis Farina
	Farina in 2001
Born	Donaldo Gugliermo Farina; February 29, 1944; Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	July 22, 2013 (aged 69); Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S.
Resting place	Mount Carmel Cemetery
Occupations	Actor; police officer; detective;
Years active	1967–1985 (police); 1981–2013 (actor);
Spouse	Patricia Farina (m. 1970; div. 1980)
Partner	Marianne Cahill
Children	3

Donaldo Gugliermo "Dennis" Farina^[1] (February 29, 1944 – July 22, 2013) was an American stage and film actor, who prior to his acting career worked as a Chicago police detective.

Often typecast as a mobster or police officer, he is known for roles such as FBI Agent Jack Crawford in Manhunter, mobster Jimmy Serrano in the comedy Midnight Run, Ray "Bones" Barboni in Get Shorty, Cousin Avi in Snatch, and Walt Miller in New Girl. He starred on television as Lieutenant Mike Torello on Crime Story and as NYPD Detective Joe Fontana on Law & Order. He also played Miami mobster Albert Lombard in three episodes of Miami Vice. From 2008 to 2010, he hosted and narrated the television program Unsolved Mysteries on Spike TV. His last major television role was in HBO's Luck, which premiered on January 29, 2012.

Early life and police career

Farina was born on a Leap Day (February 29, 1944) in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood, the fourth son and youngest of the seven children of Joseph and Yolanda Farina. Farina's father, who was from Villalba, Sicily, was a Chicago-area doctor, and his mother a homemaker. They raised their children in a North Avenue home in Old Town, a working-class neighborhood with a broad ethnic mixture, with Italians and Germans the predominant ethnicities.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]

Before becoming an actor, Farina served three years in the United States Army during the Vietnam Era, followed by 18 years in the Chicago Police Department (1967 to 1985), during which he advanced from patrolman to detective.

Acting career

Stage performances

In 1982, while still working as a detective, he made his stage debut in the Steppenwolf Theater Company production of A Prayer for My Daughter, directed by John Malkovich. Chicago Tribune critic Richard Christianson criticized the production but said that Farina and other actors had "moments that were riveting."^[7]

Reviewing a 1983 production of David Rabe's Streamers, Christianson praised Farina's performance as "beautiful" and said "he is becoming a fine actor."^[8] In 1984, he appeared as Nick in a Chicago production of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life. Ted Levine, who appeared with him in Crime Story, was in the cast.^[9]

Film and TV career

Farina began working for director Michael Mann as a police consultant, which led Mann to cast him in a small role in the 1981 film Thief. Farina worked with Mann again, as mobster Albert Lombard, in several episodes of Miami Vice. He moonlighted as an actor in Chicago-based films (like Code of Silence, a 1985 Chuck Norris film) and theater before Mann chose him for his Crime Story series, which aired on NBC from 1986 to 1988. He later starred as the title character in Buddy Faro, a short-lived 1998 private detective series on CBS.

Farina played mob boss Jimmy Serrano in the comedy-crime film Midnight Run; and Ray "Bones" Barboni, a rival criminal to Chili Palmer, in Get Shorty. He played FBI Agent Jack Crawford in Michael Mann's Manhunter, the first film to feature the character Hannibal Lecter. His other film appearances include Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Striking Distance, Another Stakeout, Snatch, The Mod Squad, Reindeer Games, Men of Respect, Big Trouble and Out of Sight. He played a baseball manager in Little Big League and a nemesis basketball coach in Eddie.

In a departure from his usual parts, he had a leading-man role, co-starring with Bette Midler, in the romantic comedy That Old Feeling (1997), directed by Carl Reiner.

Farina won an American Comedy Award for his performance in Get Shorty, and starred in the television sitcom In-Laws from 2002 until 2003. He appeared in the 2002 film Stealing Harvard, a comedy where he played a tough-talking, overprotective father-in-law. He had comic roles opposite Ed Harris and Helen Hunt in the HBO production of Empire Falls in 2005, and opposite Alan Rickman in the 2008 Bottle Shock.

Working as a voice-actor beginning in 2005, he provided the voice of aging boxer-turned-superhero Wildcat on Justice League Unlimited. In 2013, he voiced the father of Daffy Duck's girlfriend on The Looney Tunes Show, and played himself in a 2014 episode of the animated series Family Guy called "The Most Interesting Man in the World," aired posthumously, one of his final acting roles.

In 2004, producers of the television series Law & Order hired him as Detective Joe Fontana, following the death of longtime cast member Jerry Orbach. Farina stayed on the show for two seasons. In 2006, he left Law & Order for other projects, including the 2007 feature You Kill Me opposite Ben Kingsley and the 2008 What Happens in Vegas with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher.

His role of Detective Lt. Mike Torello on Crime Story was as a Chicago police officer, assigned to the U.S. Justice Department. Farina's Law & Order character, Detective Fontana, worked for Chicago Homicide before his transfer to the NYPD. Fontana shared a number of other characteristics with the actor who played him since they came from the same Chicago neighborhood, attended the same parochial school and had the same tastes in clothes and music and were fans of the Chicago Cubs.

He appeared in two television network miniseries based on Joe McGinniss's true-crime books, Blind Faith (1990) and Cruel Doubt (1992). He made a rare western, portraying legendary lawman Charlie Siringo in a 1995 television movie, Bonanza: Under Attack, a followup to the hit 1960s series.

In October 2008, he became the new host of Unsolved Mysteries when it returned to television with a new five-season, 175-episode run on Spike TV. Farina replaced Robert Stack, who had hosted the series for its prior 15-year run. This version featured re-edited segments from previous incarnations on NBC, CBS and Lifetime.^[10]

He played the title role in a 2011 independent film, The Last Rites of Joe May, written and directed by Joe Maggio, shot on location in Chicago. He was among the stars of a 2014 release, Authors Anonymous, playing a wannabe novelist with a fantasy of becoming another Tom Clancy.

Again on television, Farina co-starred in the 2012 HBO horse-race gambling series Luck, with Dustin Hoffman, directed by Michael Mann. He had a recurring guest role in 2013 in the television comedy series New Girl, though his character was killed off prior to his death.

Farina's last film role was as an aging Italian playboy in a film version of the Off-Broadway musical Lucky Stiff co-starring Dominic Marsh, Nikki M. James and Jason Alexander. The film, released posthumously in 2014, was dedicated to his memory.

Personal life

Farina was married to Patricia Farina from 1970 until their divorce in 1980. They had three sons, Dennis Jr., Michael and Joseph (who is also an actor); two granddaughters, Brianna and Olivia; and four grandsons, Michael, Tyler, Matthew and Eric. He lived with his longtime girlfriend Marianne Cahill in Chicago and Scottsdale, Arizona.^[11]

A lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, he played a Cubs fan in a 1988 revival of the successful 1977 Organic Theater Company stage play Bleacher Bums, written by and starring fellow Chicago actors Joe Mantegna and Dennis Franz.

Farina was arrested on May 11, 2008, for carrying a loaded .22-caliber pistol through Los Angeles International Airport security. He was taken to the Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Division and booked on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon, with bail set at $25,000. He claimed he had simply forgotten the weapon was still in his briefcase and never intended to take it on a plane. After police determined the weapon was unregistered, the charges were upgraded to a felony and bail was increased to $35,000.^[12] After reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two years' probation on July 17, 2008.^[13]

Death

Farina died on July 22, 2013 at the age of 69, in a Scottsdale, Arizona hospital from a pulmonary embolism.^[14]^[15] He was buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.

Filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1981	Thief	Carl
1985	Code of Silence	Det. Dorato
1986	Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling	Freddy
1986	Manhunter	Jack Crawford
1988	Midnight Run	Jimmy Serrano
1990	Men of Respect	Bankie Como
1990	Havana	Joe Volpe's assistant	Uncredited
1992	Mac	Mr. Stunder
	We're Talking Serious Money	Sal
	Street Crimes	Brian
1993	Another Stakeout	Brian O'Hara
	Romeo Is Bleeding	Nick Gazzara	Uncredited
	Striking Distance	Capt. Nick Detillo
1994	Little Big League	George O'Farrell
1995	Get Shorty	Ray "Bones" Barboni
1996	Eddie	Coach John Bailey
1997	That Old Feeling	Dan De Mora
1998	Out of Sight	Marshall Sisco
1998	Saving Private Ryan	Lt. Col. Walter Anderson
1999	The Mod Squad	Capt. Adam Greer
2000	Reindeer Games	Jack Bangs
	Preston Tylk	Dick Muller
	Snatch	Abraham "Avi" Denovitz
2001	Sidewalks of New York	Carpo
2002	Big Trouble	Henry Desalvo
2002	Stealing Harvard	Mr. Warner
2004	Paparazzi	Det. Burton
2004	Scrambled Eggs	Dr. Carlson	Short film
2007	You Kill Me	Edward O'Leary
	Purple Violets	Glen Gilmore
	The Grand	L.B.J. Deuce Fairbanks
	National Lampoon's Bag Boy	Marty Engstrom
2008	Bottle Shock	Maurice Cantavale
2008	What Happens in Vegas	Richard Banger
2010	Knucklehead	Memphis Earl
2011	The Last Rites of Joe May	Joe May
2014	Authors Anonymous	John K. Butzin	Posthumous release
2014	Lucky Stiff	Luigi Guadi	Posthumous release

Television

Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Through Naked Eyes	Patrolman	Television film
1984	The Killing Floor	Supervisor
1984	Hard Knox	April
1984–1989	Miami Vice	Albert Lombard	3 episodes
1985	Hardcastle and McCormick	Ed Coley	Episode: "Undercover McCormick"
	Hunter	Vic Terranova	Episode: "The Snow Queen"
	Remington Steele	Cop	Episode: "Steele Trying"
	Final Jeopardy	Policeman #2	Television film
1986	The Birthday Boy	Diner owner	Television film
	Jack and Mike		Episode: "Pilot"
	Lady Blue	Joe Kaufman	Episode: "Sylvie"
	Triplecross	Ernie (Veteran Cop)	Television film
1986–1988	Crime Story	Lt. Mike Torello	44 episodes
1987	Six Against the Rock	Robert Stroud	Television film
1988	Open Admissions	Fred	Television film
1989	China Beach	Lt. Col. Edward Edward Vincent	Episode: "All About E.E.V."
1989	The Case of the Hillside Stranglers	Angelo Buono Jr.	Television film
1990	Blind Faith	Prosecutor Kelly
1990	People Like Us	Elias Renthall
1991	Perfect Crimes	Armand Zaro
1992	Drug Wars: The Cocaine Cartel	Mike Cerone
	Cruel Doubt	Tom Bereton	Miniseries
	Tales from the Crypt	Antoine	Episode: "Werewolf Concerto"
1993	The Disappearance of Nora	Denton	Television film
1993	A Stranger in the Mirror
1994	One Woman's Courage	Craig McKenna
1994	The Corpse Had a Familiar Face	Det. Harry Lindstrom
1995	Out of Annie's Past	Charlie Ingle
1995	Bonanza: Under Attack	Charley Siringo
1997	Bella Mafia	Don Roberto Luciano
1998	Buddy Faro	Buddy Faro	13 episodes
2002–2003	In-Laws	Victor Pellet	15 episodes
2004–2006	Law & Order	Det. Joe Fontana	46 episodes
2005	Law & Order: Trial by Jury	Det. Joe Fontana	Episode: "Skeleton"
	Justice League Unlimited	Wildcat	Voice, episode: "The Cat and the Canary"
	Empire Falls	Walt Comeau	Miniseries
2008–2010	Unsolved Mysteries	Host/narrator
2011–2012	Luck	Gus Demitriou
2012	Doc McStuffins	Riggo	Voice, episode: "Stuck Up"
2013	New Girl	Walt Miller	2 episodes
2013	The Looney Tunes Show	Frank Russo	Voice, episode: "Daffy Duck, Esquire"
2014	Family Guy	Himself	Voice, episode: "The Most Interesting Man in the World" Posthumous release