Ben Piazza

Benito Daniel Piazza, known professionally as Ben Piazza, was an American actor born on July 30, 1933, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He died on September 7, 1991, after a battle with cancer. Over the course of his career, Piazza worked extensively in film, television, and theater, establishing himself as a recognizable character actor across multiple decades.

Piazza's Broadway career included appearances in On the Town and the musical Follow the Girls, with credits dating to 1944. His stage work preceded a film career that began in Canada with Sidney J. Furie's A Dangerous Age in 1959. That same year he made his Hollywood debut in The Hanging Tree, after which he signed contracts with both Warner Bros. and Gary Cooper's production company for a period of five years. Despite those agreements, his next film appearance did not come until No Exit in 1962.

His film roles spanned a wide range of genres and productions. In Otto Preminger's Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970), he played a violent boyfriend whose actions leave a scar on Liza Minnelli's character. He appeared in The Candy Snatchers in 1973, The Bad News Bears in 1976, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden in 1977, and Nightwing in 1979. John Landis cast him in The Blues Brothers (1980) as a wealthy restaurant patron from whom Jake, played by John Belushi, attempts to purchase his wife and daughter. Later film credits include Peter Bogdanovich's Mask (1985), Clean and Sober (1988), and Guilty by Suspicion (1991), in which Piazza portrayed Hollywood studio mogul Darryl F. Zanuck.

Television occupied a significant portion of his career as well. He played Walt Driscoll during the sixth season of Dallas from 1982 to 1983, and in 1986 he joined the cast of the daytime soap opera Santa Barbara as Dr. A.L. Rawlings for a three-month run. He also appeared in a dramatic episode of Barnaby Jones titled "Bond of Fear," which aired on April 15, 1975.

Beyond performing, Piazza was a writer. He authored the novel The Exact and Very Strange Truth, published in 1964, a coming-of-age story centered on an Italian-American boy in Little Rock, Arkansas. Though Piazza stated in the book's introduction that any resemblance between its characters and real people was irrelevant, the parallels to his own life were evident. He dedicated the novel to playwright Edward Albee, who was a close friend. Piazza also wrote plays.

In his personal life, Piazza was married to actress Dolores Dorn from 1967 until 1979. From 1973 until his death, he was in a committed relationship with Wayne Tripp. Piazza died of cancer on September 7, 1991.