He didn’t just play a cop on TV, he was one. Dennis Farina, best known for his roles on Law and Order and Get Shorty, died this morning in a Scottsdale, Ariz., according to his Lori De Waal. Farina suffered a blood clot in his lung. He was 69.
Before Farina went into acting, he was a cop in Chicago. He started as a character actor, usually playing a mobster or a cop, until he starred in more meaty roles, although usually of the same kind. In the movies, Farina made his first real splash as the mobster Jimmy Serrano in the buddy-chase-comedy Midnight Run, that starred Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. He gave a memorable turn as Ray "Bones" Barboni in Get Shorty, with John Travolta, Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito. Farina won an American Comedy Award for his part in Get Shorty.
When Farina moved to television, he went there as one of the stars of the iconic long-running TV crime drama Law & Order. He played Detective Joe Fontana. Farina took the role after the retirement of Jerry Orbach's character Lennie Briscoe. Farina’s latest TV role was in the race-track drama Luck. Luck, directed by Michael Mann, premiered on January 29, 2012 and ended production in its first season because they were unable to keep the horses, that were such a large part of a very intelligent series, safe when the cameras were running.
Farina played a wide array of characters in his thirty years as a character actor. In spite of the inevitable typecasting, he brought a mix of humor and reasonableness to the tough characters he was playing. He started out in Chicago theater, playing in Joseph Mantegna's "Bleacher Bums" and "Streamers." Farina did performances around his police duty before he was nabbed by the director Michal Mann to work as a police consultant. Mann cast Farina in the 1981 movie Thief, which starred James Caan. He played in Mann’s Crime Story series and then followed Mann to his hit TV show Miami Vice, where Farina played Albert Lombard, a mobster. Farina played Jack Crawford, an FBI agent in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, which was the first Hannibal Lecter movie.
After working so well with Mann, Farina played such parts as Army Lieutenant Colonel Walter Anderson in director Steven Spielberg's World War II classic Saving Private Ryan and co-starred as as Dan de Mora in the romantic comedy That Old Feeling with Bette Midler. He also made Striking Distance, Another Stakeout, Little Big League, Snatch, The Mod Squad, Big Trouble and Out of Sight. On television Farina played in the sitcom, In-Laws, from 2002-03 and in the HBO comedy Empire Falls with Ed Harris and Helen Hunt. He made Bottle Shock with Alan Rickman in 2008. Farina hosted the return of Unsolved Mysteries. He played in You Kill Me opposite Ben Kingsley and What Happens in Vegas with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher in 2008. Farina played Joe May in the 2011 indie film, The Last Rites of Joe May. Farina had recurring guest role in the comedy series New Girl. He recently completed shooting a comedy, Lucky Stiff.
Farina was born Feb. 29, 1944. He is survived by three sons, six grandchildren and his longtime partner, Marianne Cahill.
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