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Henry Silva is a Actor American born on 23 september 1926 at New York City (USA)

Henry Silva

Henry Silva
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Birth name Henry Silva
Nationality USA
Birth 23 september 1926 at New York City (USA)
Death 14 september 2022 (at 95 years)

Henry Silva (born September 15, 1928) is an American film and television actor.

Biography

Early life and career
Silva was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Sicilian and Spanish descent.

He grew up in Harlem and quit school when he was 13 years old to attend drama classes, supporting himself as a dishwasher and waiter in a Manhattan hotel. By 1955, Silva felt ready to audition for the Actors Studio. He was accepted, one of only five successful applicants out of more than 2,500. When the Studio staged Michael V. Gazzo's play A Hatful of Rain as a classroom project (which itself grew out of an earlier improvisation by Silva, Paul Richards and Anthony Franciosa, based on a scene written by Gazzo, entitled "Pot"), it proved so successful that it was presented on Broadway, with students Ben Gazzara, Shelley Winters, Harry Guardino, along with Franciosa, Richards and Silva, in key roles. Silva also appeared in the play's film version.


Early film roles and typecasting
In Hollywood, he played a succession of villains in films including The Bravados (1958) with Gregory Peck, The Law and Jake Wade (1958), and one of the eleven casino robbers in the 1960 Rat Pack caper film Ocean's 11 (1960) starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. He also played the communist agent Chunjin in the original The Manchurian Candidate (1962), again opposite Sinatra, and portrayed a Native American in Sinatra and Dean Martin's Rat Pack Western Sergeants 3 that same year.

Silva gradually became typecast in the role of heavies, although he did play a comic role as one of the stepbrothers in the 1960 Jerry Lewis film Cinderfella, a parody of Cinderella with Lewis in the title role, and appeared in two filmed episodes of The Outer Limits, a science-fiction anthology television series in the United States.

He sometimes played heavies on television, i.e. as a hitman in the episode "Better Bargain" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Other television roles included episodes of The Untouchables an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery and the episode "The Enemies" from the first season of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Mission Impossible. He also guest-starred on Boris Karloff's TV series Thriller in the episode "Dark Legacy".


Johnny Cool
In 1963, Henry Silva played the lead role in the gangster film Johnny Cool, which was produced by United Artists and Chrislaw. His character Salvatore "Johnny Cool" Giordano was a hitman sent on a mission by exiled mobster Johnny Colini to kill the underworld figures who had plotted against the mobster. Premiering on October 19, 1963, the film was successful at the box-office and was critically well received. So was the actor's first lead performance, which carried the film. The strong supporting cast features Elizabeth Montgomery, Mort Sahl, Telly Savalas, Jim Backus, Joey Bishop, and Sammy Davis, Jr., most of whom Silva's character murders during the course of the film.

Variety praised Silva's performance, writing "Henry Silva, as a Sicilian-born assassin, is at home as the 'delivery boy of death'". The film's box-office receipts had become less favorable by late November (partly due to the death of President John F. Kennedy).


Italian Movies
In 1965, an Italian film producer made Silva an offer to star as a hero for a change and he moved his family overseas. Silva's turning-point picture was a spaghetti western, The Hills Run Red (1966), which made him a hot box-office commodity in Spain, Italy, Germany, and France. Between 1966 and 1977 he starred or co-starred in at least 25 movies, the majority of which were Italian Poliziotteschi films, where he normally played the villain or hitman, or the dark hero, or a combination of the two. His best remembered of these are Manhunt (1972), Il Boss (1973), and Almost Human (1974). He also appeared against type as an Apache who helps rape victim Michele Carey in the 1970 revenge western Five Savage Men.

Returning to the United States in the mid-1970s, he co-starred with Frank Sinatra in Contract on Cherry Street (1977) and Charles Bronson in Love and Bullets (1979). He then signed on as the evil adversary Killer Kane in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), a role he reprised in the subsequent TV series.


1980s-2000s career
In the 1980s and 1990s, he appeared as the arrogant hunter Colonel Brock in Alligator (1980), a drug-addicted hitman in Burt Reynolds' Sharky's Machine (1981), a former prison warden-turned-enforcer in Escape from the Bronx (1983), which was lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000, a comedy gangster in Cannonball Run II (1984) opposite many of his former Rat Pack buddies, the villainous CIA agent Kurt Zagon in Steven Seagal's debut Above the Law (1988), the sinister mob hitman Influence in Dick Tracy (1990), and the voice of the supervillain Bane in Batman: The Animated Series (1994) and The New Batman Adventures (1998).

Silva also starred as himself in a spoof of "In Search of ..."-type shows in the comedy Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) for a segment titled Henry Silva's "Bullshit, or Not!", and played a spectator at a boxing match in the 2001 version of Ocean's Eleven.

Best films

The Outsider (1983)
(Actor)

Usually with

Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Henry Silva (72 films)

Display filmography as detailed form
YearNameJobRoles
2008Step BrothersActorKurt Zagon (archive footage) (uncredited)
2001Ocean's ElevenActorSelf
1999Ghost Dog: The Way of the SamuraiActorRay Vargo
1997The End of ViolenceActorJuan-Emilio
1996Mad Dog TimeActorSleepy Joe Carlisle
1995Drifting SchoolActorGeneral Stearn
1994The Silence of the HamsActorPolice Chief
1993The HarvestActorDetective Topo
1990Dick TracyActorInfluence
1988Above the LawActorKurt Zagon
1988BulletproofActorCol. Kartiff
1987Amazon Women on the MoonActorHenry Silva
1986Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of GoldActorAgon
1985Code of SilenceActorLuis Comacho
1985Lust in the DustActorBernardo
1984Cannonball Run IIActorSlim
1984The ManhuntActorPrison Boss
1983The OutsiderActorSauveur Meccacci
1983Chained HeatActorLester
1983Escape from the BronxActorFloyd Wrangler
1982Wrong Is RightActorRafeeq
1982MegaForceActorGuerera
1981Sharky's MachineActorBilly Score
1980VirusActorGeneral Garland
1980AlligatorActorBrock
1979Buck Rogers in the 25th CenturyActorKane
1979Day of the AssassinActorPolice Chief Jorge Gomez
1979Love and BulletsActorVittorio Farroni
1979ThirstActorDr. Gauss
1977Weapons of DeathActorSantoro
1976Free Hand for a Tough CopActorBrescianelli
1976ShootActorZeke
1976CrimebustersActorAltieri
1975White Fang to the RescueActorMr. Nelson
1975Manhunt in the CityActorDavid Vannucchi
1974Almost HumanActorCommissario Walter Grandi
1974KidnapActorCommissioner Caprile
1974Cry of a ProstituteActorTony Aniante
1973The BossActorNick Lanzetta
1973Les HommesActorEverett
1973The InsolentActorEmmanuel Ristack dit 'L'insolent'
1972The Italian ConnectionActorDave Catania
1972The Italian ConnectionActorDave Catania
1971Man and BoyActorCaine
1971Black NoonActorMoon
1968Frame UpActorInspector Sterling
1968Never a Dull MomentActorFrank Boley
1967MatchlessActorHank Norris
1967AssassinationActorJohn Chandler / Philip Chandler
1966The Hills Run RedActorGarcia Mendez
1966The PlainsmanActorCrazy Knife
1966The PlainsmanActorCrazy Knife
1965Hail! MafiaActorSchaft
1965The Return of Mr. MotoActorMr. Moto
1965The RewardActorJoaquin
1965The RewardActorJoaquin
1964The Secret InvasionActorJohn Durrell
1963A Gathering of EaglesActorCol. Joe Garcia
1963Johnny CoolActorJohnny Cool / Salvatore Giordano
1962The Manchurian CandidateActorChunjin
1962Sergeants 3ActorMountain Hawk
1960Ocean's ElevenActorRoger Corneal
1960CinderfellaActorMaximilian
1959Green MansionsActorKua-Ko
1959The Jayhawkers!ActorLordan
1958The BravadosActorLujan
1958The Law and Jake WadeActorRennie
1958Ride a Crooked TrailActorSam Teeler
1957The Tall TActorChink
1957A Hatful of RainActorMother
1956Crowded ParadiseActor
1952Viva Zapata!ActorHernandez