Kario Salem

Kario Salem, born May 23, 1955, in Los Angeles, California, is an American actor and screenwriter working across stage, film, and television. He graduated from Agoura High School in Agoura, California, in 1973.

Salem's stage career began in regional theater. In 1975, he played Mr. Applegate in a Valley Musical Theatre Institute production of Damn Yankees, a cast that also included a then-15-year-old Kevin Spacey and April Winchell. On Broadway, he appeared in 1989 as Scoop in The Heidi Chronicles alongside Mary McDonnell. His regional work earned him a Drama-Logue Award in 1991 for his performance in Richard Greenberg's The Extra Man at South Coast Repertory Theater, and a Boston Critics Award for his portrayal of Cousins in George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, a production that featured Cherry Jones.

His television career spans more than 80 guest appearances, including Francis Campion in Testimony of Two Men in 1977, Marcel Pasquinel in Centennial in 1978, and a role in an Emmy Award-winning episode of M*A*S*H. He also appeared as Brad Stephens in a season eight episode of Hawaii Five-O titled The Deadly Persuasion. His film credits include Jocko in Triumph of the Spirit in 1989, the Grand Inquisitor in Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise in 1992, and a bleach blonde French gangster in Roger Avary's Killing Zoe in 1993.

As a screenwriter, Salem received an Emmy Award in 1997 for Don King: Only in America, a television film that also earned him a PEN nomination and won both the Broadcast Film Critics Award and the Peabody Award for Best Television Film of the year. The following year, he received a second Emmy nomination and a second PEN nomination for writing The Rat Pack. In 2018, Warner Bros. and DC Films hired Salem to write the screenplay for New Gods, based on Jack Kirby's comic-book characters and directed by Ava DuVernay, though the project was no longer moving forward as of April 2021.

Salem is also a composer and a partner in the music company Matter Music, known for its soundtracks for the films Riding Giants and Wedding Crashers. Working under the name K.O., he released the music video Stand Down, which starred Billy Bob Thornton, won Best Music Video at the Toronto Shorts International Film Festival, and accumulated over 13 million views on Facebook. Salem is represented by Creative Artists Agency.