Vincent Gardenia was an Italian American stage

Stage (theatre)

In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...

, film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, and television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

.

Early life

Gardenia was born Vincenzo Scognamiglio in Naples, Italy, the son of Elisa and Gennaro Gardenia Scognamiglio. After emigrating to the United States at the age of 2, he lived most of his life in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, he performed in a family acting troupe in Italian-American neighborhoods in and around New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

When Vincent was 2, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, and his father established an Italian-language acting troupe that specialized in melodramas. "The titles changed, but they were usually about a son or daughter who gets in trouble, runs away, then begs forgiveness," Mr. Gardenia said. At the age of 5, he made his stage debut in his father's company as a shoeshine boy, and while still a teen-ager he was playing character roles. He continued acting in the company until 1960, five years after he took his first English-language stage role.

Career

Gardenia first spoke English onstage in 1955, as a pirate in the Broadway play "In April Once." The following year at age 28, he appeared as Piggy in his off Broadway debut was in The Man with the Golden Arm

The Man with the Golden Arm

The Man with the Golden Arm is a 1955 American drama film, based on the novel of the same name by Nelson Algren, which tells the story of a heroin addict who gets clean while in prison, but struggles to stay that way in the outside world. It stars Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Arnold...

in 1956. He described his role in the film Little Murders

Little Murders

Little Murders is a 1971 black comedy film starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd, directed by Alan Arkin. It is the story of a girl, Patsy , who brings home her boyfriend, Alfred , to meet her severely dysfunctional family amidst a series of random shootings, garbage strikes and electrical outages...

as a "turning point". He won Obie Award

Obie Award

The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...

s in 1960 and 1969.

In 1972, he won a Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in The Prisoner of Second Avenue

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

The Prisoner of Second Avenue is an American black comedy play by Neil Simon, later made into a film released in 1975.The play ran on Broadway from November 1971 until September 1973, with Peter Falk and Lee Grant starring as Mel and Edna Edison, and Vincent Gardenia as Mel's brother Harry. The...

and in 1979 he was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in Ballroom

Ballroom (musical)

Ballroom is a musical with a book by Jerome Kass and music by Billy Goldenberg and lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.Based on Kass' teleplay for the 1975 Emmy Award-winning television drama Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, the plot focuses on lonely widow Bea Asher, who becomes romantically...

. In film, he was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...

 for his performances in Bang the Drum Slowly

Bang the Drum Slowly (film)

Bang the Drum Slowly is a 1973 film adaptation of the 1956 baseball novel of the same name by Mark Harris. It was previously dramatized in 1956 on the U.S. Steel Hour with Paul Newman and Albert Salmi....

and Moonstruck

Moonstruck

Moonstruck is a 1987 American romantic comedy film directed by Norman Jewison. It stars Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Vincent Gardenia, and Olympia Dukakis....

.

In television, Gardenia won the 1990 Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 for his performance in Age-Old Friends, with Hume Cronyn

Hume Cronyn

Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...

. Among his best remembered TV roles is his portrayal of Frank Lorenzo, Archie Bunker

Archie Bunker

Archibald "Archie" Bunker is a fictional New Yorker in the 1970s top-rated American television sitcom All in the Family and its spin-off Archie Bunker's Place, played to acclaim by Carroll O'Connor. Bunker is a veteran of World War II, reactionary, bigoted, conservative, blue-collar worker, and...

's neighbor on All in the Family (1973–74) and as J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

 in the miniseries Kennedy

Kennedy (TV Miniseries)

Kennedy is a five-hour miniseries written by Reg Gadney and directed by Jim Goddard. The miniseries was produced by Central Independent Television and originally aired in the United States starting on 20 November 1983 around the time of the twentieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.The...

(1983).

Death

In December 1992, Vincent Gardenia was in Philadelphia to perform in the stage production of the Tom Dulack comedy “Breaking Legs”, beginning a three-week run in the off Broadway hit, at the famed Forrest Theatre on Walnut Street. In the play, Gardenia had performed the role of restauranteur ‘Lou Garziano’, since the show’s New York opening in May 1991.

In the early morning hours of December 9, 1992, just hours after the Philly preview of “Breaking Legs”, Gardenia had returned to his hotel about 1:00am after dining with stage director John Tillinger, producer Elliot Martin and the play’s cast after the show’s preview. According to Martin, Gardenia showed no signs of illness, adding, “It was just a jolly evening.”

According to authorities, when Gardenia failed to appear for a radio interview to promote the play’s run, press representative Irene Gandy and a fellow cast member Vince Viverito became alarmed. When they arrived at Gardenia’s hotel, and there was no answer from Gardenia, they entered his hotel room. It was there where they found him dead of a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

, in his room, dressed and clutching a telephone. He was 71. In true theatrical tradition of “the show must go on”, hours after the sad discovery, the play’s official opening went on that evening at the Forrest Theatre.

He is interred in Saint Charles Cemetery

Saint Charles Cemetery, Farmingdale

Saint Charles Cemetery located at 2015 Wellwood Ave Farmingdale, New York 11735 is aRoman Catholic cemetery managed by the Diocese of Brooklyn. It is more formally known as St. Charles/Resurrection Cemeteries.Among those interred here are:...

 in Farmingdale

Farmingdale, New York

The Village of Farmingdale is an incorporated village on Long Island within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York in the United States...

, Long Island, New York, along with his parents Elisa (1901-1967) and Gennaro Gardenia Scognamiglio (1896-1965). A section of 16th Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, where he lived until his death, bears the secondary name of Vincent Gardenia Boulevard in his honor.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1945	The House on 92nd Street The House on 92nd Street The House on 92nd Street is a 1945 black-and-white spy film directed by Henry Hathaway. The film, shot mainly in New York City, was released shortly after the end of World War II. The House on 92nd Street was made with the full cooperation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation , and its head, J....	spy trainee
1958	Cop Hater Cop Hater (film) Cop Hater is a 1958 American police procedural film, based on the 1956 novel Cop Hater by Ed McBain, the first in a series of books about the 87th Precinct in New York City. The film was produced and directed by William Berke, written by Henry Kane, and stars Robert Loggia and Gerald S...	Danny Gimp
1962	A View From the Bridge A View from the Bridge A View from the Bridge is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller that was first staged on September 29, 1955 as a one-act verse drama with A Memory of Two Mondays at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The play was unsuccessful and Miller subsequently revised the play to contain two acts; this...	Liperi
1960	Murder, Inc. Murder, Inc. (1960 film) Murder, Inc. is a 1960 American gangster film starring Stuart Whitman, May Britt, Henry Morgan, Peter Falk, and Simon Oakland. The Cinemascope movie was directed by Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg. The screenplay was based on the true story of Murder Inc., a Brooklyn gang that operated in the...	Lawyer Laslo
1961	The Hustler The Hustler The Hustler is a 1959 novel by American writer Walter Tevis. It tells the story of a young pool hustler, Edward "Fast Eddie" Felson, who challenges the legendary Minnesota Fats .The Hustler was adapted into a 1961 film of the same title, starring Paul...	Bartender
1967	The Rat Patrol The Rat Patrol The Rat Patrol is an American television program that aired on ABC during the 1966–1968 seasons. The show follows the exploits of four Allied soldiers who are part of a long-range desert patrol group in the North African campaign during World War II...	Colonel Centis
	Gunsmoke Gunsmoke Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....		Season 12, episode 24 (Noose of Gold)
1971	Little Murders Little Murders Little Murders is a 1971 black comedy film starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd, directed by Alan Arkin. It is the story of a girl, Patsy , who brings home her boyfriend, Alfred , to meet her severely dysfunctional family amidst a series of random shootings, garbage strikes and electrical outages...	Mr. Newquist
	Cold Turkey Cold Turkey (film) Cold Turkey is a 1971 satirical comedy film. It stars Dick Van Dyke plus a long list of comedic actors, several of whom are well known to North American television audiences...	Mayor Wappler
1973	Bang the Drum Slowly Bang the Drum Slowly Bang the Drum Slowly is a novel by Mark Harris, a sequel to The Southpaw . It was first published in 1956, and was later made into a 1956 U.S...	Dutch Schnell	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
1973-74	All in the Family All in the Family All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...	Frank Lorenzo
1974	Death Wish Death Wish (film) Death Wish is a 1974 crime thriller film loosely based on the novel Death Wish by Brian Garfield. The film was directed by Michael Winner and stars Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, a man who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter is sexually assaulted by muggers.The film was...	Det. Frank Ochoa
1974	The Front Page The Front Page (1974 film) The Front Page is a 1974 American comedy-drama film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. The screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is based on the 1928 play of the same title by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, which was previously adapted for the screen under its...	Sheriff Pete Hartmann
1977	Fire Sale Fire sale A fire sale is the sale of goods at extremely discounted prices, typically when the seller faces bankruptcy or other impending distress. The term may originally have been based on the sale of goods at a heavy discount due to fire damage...	Benny Fikus
1977	The Mary Tyler Moore Show The Mary Tyler Moore Show The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977...	Frank Coleman	Season 7, episode 24 (The Last Show)
1980	Home Movies Home Movies (film) Home Movies is a 1980 independent film directed by Brian De Palma and starring Kirk Douglas, Nancy Allen, Vincent Gardenia, Keith Gordon, Theresa Saldana, and Gerrit Graham.-Plot:...	Doctor Byrd
1982	Death Wish II Death Wish II Death Wish II is a 1982 sequel to the 1974 film. It stars Charles Bronson, was written by David Engelbach and directed by Michael Winner....	Det. Frank Ochoa
1986	Movers & Shakers Movers & Shakers Movers & Shakers is a 1985 comedy movie distributed by MGM. It stars Walter Matthau and was directed by William Asher.The story follows the head of production at a Hollywood studio who wants to make a movie to fulfill a promise made to a dying friend....	Saul Gritz
	Little Shop of Horrors Little Shop of Horrors (1986 film) Little Shop of Horrors is a 1986 American comedy musical film adaptation of the off-Broadway musical comedy of the same name by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a nerdy florist shop worker who raises a vicious plant that feeds on human blood...	Mr. Mushnik
1987	Moonstruck Moonstruck Moonstruck is a 1987 American romantic comedy film directed by Norman Jewison. It stars Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Vincent Gardenia, and Olympia Dukakis....	Cosmo Castorini	Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
1989	Skin Deep Skin Deep (1989 film) Skin Deep is a 1989 American film starring John Ritter, written and directed by Blake Edwards.-Plot:Zachary "Zach" Hutton is a successful author who has a weakness for alcohol and beautiful women. Zach's mistress walks in on him in the process of cheating on her, followed by his estranged wife Alex...	Barny the Barkeeper
1991	The Super The Super The Super is a 1991 American comedy film starring Joe Pesci as a New York slum landlord sentenced to live in one of his own buildings until it is brought up to code...	Big Lou Kritski

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