Joe Spano

Joe Spano is an American actor born on July 7, 1946, in San Francisco, California. He is widely recognized for two long-running television roles: Lt. Henry Goldblume on Hill Street Blues and FBI Special Agent Tobias C. Fornell on NCIS.

Spano's stage career began in college, where he made his debut as Paris in a production of Romeo and Juliet in 1967. He was a member of the improvisation group The Wing, and in 1968 co-founded the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, performing with the company for a decade. His west coast stage credits include Eduardo Pavlovsky's Potestad, David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, and American Buffalo, the latter earning him an LA Drama Critics Circle Award. At the Rubicon Theater in Ventura, he portrayed General Burgoyne in George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, Greg in A. R. Gurney's Sylvia, and Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. He also received a 2009 Ovation Award nomination for Lead Actor in a Play for the role of George in the Rubicon Theatre Company production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Additionally, he played a vampire in the cult musical Dracula: A Musical Nightmare at a small Los Angeles theatre. Spano is a member of the Antaeus Theater Company and a founding member of three other theater companies.

Spano made his Broadway debut in 1992 in the Roundabout Theater revival of Arthur Miller's The Price, alongside Eli Wallach. The production was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Revival.

After relocating to Hollywood in the late 1970s, Spano took on guest roles in television and minor parts in the films American Graffiti (1973) and The Enforcer (1976). His breakthrough came with Hill Street Blues, in which he played Henry Goldblume across the series' entire seven-year run, first as a detective sergeant and later as a lieutenant. Goldblume served as one of precinct captain Frank Furillo's trusted junior officers, functioning at various times as a hostage negotiator and gangs relations officer. In 1988, Spano won an Emmy Award for Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series for a role in an episode of Midnight Caller. Following Hill Street Blues, he appeared in recurring roles on NYPD Blue (1993) and Murder One (1995), as well as episodes of The X-Files, Mercy Point, and Amazing Grace. His feature film credits include Apollo 13 and Primal Fear. He also appeared in the television movie Brotherhood of Justice alongside Keanu Reeves and Kiefer Sutherland.

Since the premiere episode of NCIS, Spano has recurred as FBI Special Agent Tobias Fornell, the FBI counterpart to NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, portrayed by Mark Harmon. By Season 15, the character had left the FBI and was working as a private investigator. Two episodes centered on Fornell's personal life: one in which his daughter is endangered and another in which his career is threatened, with his friendship with Gibbs driving NCIS's involvement in each case.

Earlier in his career, Spano voiced the character Pasqually the Chef for Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre from 1977 to 1983. He is also the voice of the Wild Flower Hotline for the Theodore Payne Foundation. Spano graduated from Archbishop Riordan High School in 1963. His parents were Vincent Dante Spano, a physician, and Virginia Jean Carpenter. He and his wife, therapist Joan Zerrien, married in 1980 and have two adopted daughters.