Philip Bosco

Philip Michael Bosco (September 26, 1930 – December 3, 2018) was an American actor whose Broadway career spanned nearly five decades, from 1958 to 2006. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Margaret Raymond Bosco, a policewoman of German descent, and Philip Lupo Bosco, a carnival worker of Italian descent, he attended St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City before pursuing drama studies at Catholic University of America. There he achieved notable success performing the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III.

Bosco's Broadway debut came in 1960 with Rape of the Belt, a production that earned him his first Tony Award nomination. Over the following three decades he built his reputation supporting major stars in classic revivals, among them Cyrano de Bergerac, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. His work in George Bernard Shaw revivals was particularly extensive, encompassing Man and Superman, Saint Joan, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House — opposite Rex Harrison — and You Never Can Tell, with the final three earning him additional Tony nominations. He also appeared alongside Shirley Knight in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of Come Back, Little Sheba, and his early credits included the musical Donnybrook! and the comedy Twelfth Night, as well as Eminent Domain.

The peak of Bosco's stage recognition arrived in 1989, when he won both the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play for his performance as Saunders in the farce Lend Me a Tenor. Following that production, he continued an active Broadway presence, appearing in An Inspector Calls in 1994, The Heiress in 1995, a 1998 revival of Twelfth Night, Copenhagen in 2000, and Twelve Angry Men in 2004. He played Grandpa Potts in the 2005 Broadway production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and returned to Heartbreak House in 2006, this time in the role of the aged Captain Shotover. Bosco was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1998. He retired from the stage in 2009 following an appearance in the City Center Encores production of Finian's Rainbow, though he subsequently lent his voice to Douglas Carter Beane's 2010 play Mr. and Mrs. Fitch.

Beyond the stage, Bosco accumulated substantial film and television credits. His motion picture work included Trading Places, The Money Pit, Children of a Lesser God, Three Men and a Baby, Working Girl, Suspect, Walls of Glass, Quick Change, Straight Talk, Angie, Nobody's Fool, The First Wives Club, Milk Money, Wonder Boys, and The Savages, the 2007 film in which he had a starring role. He portrayed Vincenzo the butler in the 1995 comedy It Takes Two and played Walter Wallace in the 1997 romantic comedy My Best Friend's Wedding, alongside Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, and Dermot Mulroney. On television, Bosco appeared regularly throughout the Law and Order franchise in roles ranging from judges to lawyers to villains, and was a series regular on the FX drama Damages. In 1988 he won a Daytime Emmy Award for his appearance in the ABC Afterschool Special Read Between the Lines.

Bosco also contributed to documentary and educational media. He narrated Ric Burns's 1991 documentary film Coney Island and voiced characters in Ken Burns's PBS documentary series. On March 27, 1990, he narrated Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus by Barbara Bash for the sixty-second episode of the PBS series Reading Rainbow.

On January 2, 1957, Bosco married Nancy Ann Dunkle, whom he had met as a fellow student at Catholic University of America. The couple had seven children and fifteen grandchildren and resided in Haworth, New Jersey. Bosco died at his home on December 3, 2018, from complications of dementia, at the age of 88.