Leonardo Cimino has died: Actor whose career spanned 60 years
He was not on the list.
Leonardo Cimino epitomized the sort of character actor it is impossible to imagine as having been young.
Coming to the screen after a lifetime on the Broadway and off-Broadway stages, Cimino had a diminutive, stooped frame and a long, thin face, with a penetrating stare. Despite his physical frailty, he remained durable, with over 60 years in the profession. His was a singular presence: sometimes sinister, sometimes humane.
He was born in Manhattan to Italian parents, his father a tailor. In a sense, Cimino never left New York, his background guaranteeing casting as high-ranking members of the Mafia, urban ethnic types and clerics. He studied the violin at the Julliard before becoming drawn to acting.
His sister Maria was a librarian, in the children's department of the south-west Harlem branch of the New York Public Library. By 1929, her brother was staging puppet shows for children there, the audience's enjoyment striking a chord with library assistant Pura Belpre, subsequently a puppeteer herself, children's author and oral storyteller.
In the Second World War he served in the army and was part of the second wave in the Normandy landings. Back in the city, he studied acting, directing and modern dance at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. Reputedly, it was while attending one of Martha Graham's dance classes that a chance meeting with actor and director Jose Ferrer led to Cimino's Broadway debut, in 1946 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, supporting Ferrer in his most famous role, Cyrano de Bergerac.
Ferrer retained him for a season at the City Center in 1948, which included Volpone and The Insect Comedy. At the end of 1947, at the Maxine Eliott Theatre, he was "Second Sacristan" in the NY production of Bertolt Brecht's Galileo, starring, and adapted by, Charles Laughton, and directed by Joseph Losey. In The Liar (1950), an off-Broadway musical, one of his fellow supporting actors was a young Walter Matthau.
Cimino had the title role in Vincent (Cricket Theatre, 1959), advertised as "Van Gogh vs Gauguin". His performance as the servant Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov (1957-58), at the Gate Theatre on Second Avenue, earned him a Village Voice Obie Award. He played the Indian magistrate Mr Das in the Broadway transfer of "Binkie" Beaumont's production of A Passage To India (Ambassador Theatre, 1962).
For Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1975 he was the unfortunate Egeon in The Comedy Of Errors, which had two unexpected Shakespeareans in Danny De Vito and Ted Danson. Eleven years later, at the Newman Theater and under the same auspices, he was Polonius to Kevin Kline's Hamlet.
Among his earliest television appearances was The Phil Silvers Show (1959), as a Mexican bandit who steals Bilko and his chums' clothes, in an episode co-written by Neil Simon. He did six episodes of Naked City (1958-63), made and set in New York, as were (mostly) Kojak (1974, 1976), The Equaliser (1986, 1989), and Law And Order (1996, 2000).
As Woody Allen's therapist in Stardust Memories (1980) he got to address the audience, declaring he had diagnosed Allen with Ozymandias Melancholia. David Lynch's version of Dune (1984), had him as an effusive doctor tending to the monstrous Baron Harkonnen. He was a red herring in The Monster Squad (1987), as a forbidding German recluse, eventually revealed to be a former concentration camp inmate, before adding to the Italian-American atmosphere in Moonstruck (1987). The right-wing critic Michael Medved was appalled by Monsignor (1982), including Cimino as an "shriveled, anorexic Pope".
The absurd TV science fiction saga V (1983) concerned an invasion of Earth by alien lizards. In these unlikely circumstances, Cimino provided a genuine moment of emotional force as a Holocaust survivor who explains the true meaning of the Victory sign. Waiters were another specialty – he served Marlon Brando in The Freshman (1990) and argued with Vince Vaughn in Made (2001). Years earlier, he had briefly taught at the New York High School for the Performing Arts, replacing Sidney Lumet. The fecund, versatile director used him in Q&A (1990), and as a disreputable jeweler in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), the last film for both of them.
Filmography
Film
Year Title Role Notes
1961 Mad Dog Coll Wickles - Bar Owner
1961 The Young Savages Mr. Rugiello Uncredited
1964 Quick, Let's Get Married Dr. Paoli
1969 Stiletto Allie Fargo Uncredited
1970 Cotton Comes to Harlem Tom
1972 Come Back, Charleston Blue Frank Mago
1973 Jeremy Cello Teacher
1975 The Man in the Glass Booth Dr. Alvarez
1980 Hide in Plain Sight Don Angelo Venucci
1980 Stardust Memories Sandy's Analyst
1982 Amityville II: The Possession Chancellor
1982 Monsignor The Pope
1984 Dune The Baron's Doctor
1987 The Monster Squad Scary German Guy
1987 Moonstruck Felix
1988 The Seventh Sign Head Cardinal
1989 Penn & Teller Get Killed Ernesto
1990 Q&A Nick Petrone
1990 The Freshman Lorenzo
1991 Hudson Hawk Cardinal
1993 Claude Daddy V.J.
1993 Household Saints Mario, a Storyteller
1995 Waterworld Elder
1999 Cradle Will Rock VTA - Man in Line
2001 18 Shades of Dust Connie Broglio
2001 Hannibal Sammie (scenes deleted, available on home video releases)
2001 Made Leo
2007 Before the Devil Knows You're Dead William (final film role)
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1949 The Big Story Tyler 1 episode
1958 Armstrong Circle Theatre 1 episode
1958 Naked City Shellshock 1 episode
1959 The Phil Silvers Show Bandit #3 1 episode
1959 The DuPont Show of the Month 1 episode
1959 Brenner Mr. Jackson 1 episode
1960 Armstrong Circle Theatre Joe March 1 episode
1960 The Witness 1 episode
1960 The DuPont Show of the Month 1 episode
1960 Naked City Johnny 1 episode
1961 Give Us Barabbas! Caleb TV movie
1961 The Power and the Glory TV movie
1961 Way Out Nightime Murderer 1 episode
1961 Route 66 Vendor 1 episode
1961 Naked City Miklos Konya 1 episode
1961 Naked City Julio Varraco 1 episode
1962 Naked City Alberto Russo 1 episode
1963 Naked City Sid Kitka 1 episode
1963 The Defenders Ralph Kinderman 1 episode
1965 For the People LeBlanc 1 episode
1966 ABC Stage 67 Dino 1 episode
1973 Honor Thy Father Sam DeCavalcante TV movie
1974 Kojak Ruby Kabelsky 2 episodes
1976 Kojak Cordick 1 episode
1976 Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers Ben Rosselli mini-series, 1 of 4 episodes
1980 A Time for Miracles Italian Priest TV movie
1980 Rappaccini's Daughter Rappaccini TV movie
1981 Ryan's Hope Alexei Vartova 10 episodes
1983 V (1983 miniseries) Abraham Bernstein mini-series, 2 of 2 episodes
1983 Cocaine and Blue Eyes Orestes Anatole TV movie
1983 Will There Really Be a Morning? Adolph Zukor TV movie
1984 One Life to Live Antonescu 1 episode
1986 The Equalizer Thomas Marley Sr 1 episode
1989 The Equalizer Doctor Molinari 2 episodes
1989 The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd Orambello Johnson 1 episode
1991 Dead and Alive: The Race for Gus Farace TV movie
1994 M.A.N.T.I.S. Benny Cruikshank 1 episode
1996 Law & Order Costello 1 episode
1997 The Hunger Nero 1 episode
1998 Witness to the Mob Neil Dellacroce TV movie
2000 Law & Order Tommy Valducci 1 episode
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