Vincent Gardenia

Vincent Gardenia, born Vincenzo Scognamiglio on January 7, 1920, in Ercolano, in the Città Metropolitana di Napoli, Campania, Italy, was an Italian American actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television across more than four decades. His family immigrated to the United States in November 1922 and settled in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Gennaro Scognamiglio, founded an acting troupe that performed Italian-language melodramas in Italian American neighborhoods throughout the New York City area. Gardenia made his debut with the company at age five, playing a shoeshine boy, and progressed to character roles while still a teenager. He remained with the troupe until 1960, five years after making his first English-speaking appearance on Broadway. He also served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Gardenia's first English-speaking Broadway role came in 1955, when he appeared as a pirate in the play In April Once. His off-Broadway debut followed the next year, when he played Piggy in The Man with the Golden Arm at age 36. He went on to appear on Broadway in productions including Rashomon and The Wall, and his Broadway career extended from 1958 to 1984. He received two Obie Awards for Most Distinguished Performance by an Actor, the first in 1960 for Machinal and the second in 1969 for Passing Through From Exotic Places. A life member of The Actors Studio, Gardenia earned his most prominent Broadway recognition in 1972, when he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in The Prisoner of Second Avenue, opposite Peter Falk. Seven years later, he received a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical for his work in Ballroom. His other Broadway credits include God's Favorite and Breaking Legs.

In film, Gardenia accumulated a substantial body of work beginning with small parts in pictures such as The House on 92nd Street, Cop Hater, and A View From the Bridge. His feature film credits include Murder Inc. (1960), The Hustler (1961), The Front Page (1974), Greased Lightning (1977), Heaven Can Wait (1978), and The Super (1991). He portrayed Detective Frank Ochoa in Death Wish (1974) and reprised the role in Death Wish II (1982), and played Mr. Mushnik in the musical film Little Shop of Horrors (1986). His screen performances earned him two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor, the first for Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and the second for Moonstruck (1987).

On television, Gardenia appeared in episodes of The Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Ironside, The Big Valley, and The Fugitive, among many other series. He portrayed Archie Bunker's neighbor Frank Lorenzo on All in the Family and played J. Edgar Hoover in the 1983 miniseries Kennedy. In 1975, he appeared in a Kojak episode designed as a potential series pilot, playing Vince LaGuardia, a former New York City police detective working in Las Vegas; CBS did not pick up the pilot. Gardenia won the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Movie or Series in 1990 for his performance in the HBO production Age-Old Friends, alongside Hume Cronyn.

Gardenia died of a heart attack on December 9, 1992, in Philadelphia, where he had been performing in the stage production of Breaking Legs at the Forrest Theatre. He had been playing restaurant owner Lou Graziano in the Tom Dulack comedy since the show's New York City opening in May 1991. He was found in his hotel room, dressed and clutching the telephone, after failing to appear for a scheduled radio interview that morning. The play's official opening proceeded that same evening, with the company dedicating the performance to his memory, and Harry Guardino assumed his role. Gardenia never married and had no children. He was survived by his younger brother, Ralph Frank Scognamiglio. A section of 16th Avenue in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he lived until his death, has been designated Vincent Gardenia Boulevard in his honor.