Vincent Gardenia
Gender: Male
Born: 7th January 1920
Died: 9th December 1992
Nationality: United States of America
TV programs: All in the Family, Breaking Away, The Dream Merchants, Kennedy
Movies: Little Shop of Horrors, Moonstruck, The Super, Heaven Can Wait, Little Murders, Cold Turkey, Fire Sale, Death Wish II, Death Wish, Skin Deep, Reading Rainbow: Man's Best Friend, The Big Racket, Lucky Luciano, Mission: Impossible vs. the Mob, The Front Page, Murder, Inc., The Last Flight of Noah's Ark, Where's Poppa?, Greased Lightning, Bang the Drum Slowly, Home Movies, Age Old Friends, Movers & Shakers, The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery, Brass
Vincent Gardenia (born Vincenzo Scognamiglio, January 7, 1920 – December 9, 1992) was an Italian American stage, film, and television actor.
Gardenia was born Vincenzo Scognamiglio in Naples, Italy, the son of Elisa and Gennaro Gardenia Scognamiglio. After emigrating to the United States at the age 2, he lived most of his life in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, he performed in a family acting troupe in Italian-American neighborhoods in and around New York City.
When Vincent Gardenia was 2-years-old, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York City, and his father established an Italian-language acting troupe that specialized in melodramas. "The titles changed, but they were usually about a son or daughter who gets in trouble, runs away, then begs forgiveness," Gardenia said. At age 5, he made his stage debut in his father's company as a shoeshine boy, and while still a teen-ager he was playing character roles. He continued acting in the company until 1960, five years after he took his first English-language stage role.
Gardenia first spoke English onstage in 1955, as a pirate in the Broadway play "In April Once." The following year at age 28, he
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Internet Movie Database