Henry Silva (born September 15, 1928) is an American actor who has played a wide variety of movie roles.
Silva was born in
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
of
SicilianSicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
and
SpanishSpanish people or Spaniards constitute the nationality and ethnic group of natives of Spain, a European country in the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. The Spanish nationality is in essence made up of regional nationalities, reflecting the complex history of Spain...
descent. He grew up in
HarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.Harlem has been defined by a series...
and quit school when he was 13 years old to attend drama classes, supporting himself as a dishwasher and waiter in a
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
hotel.
By 1955, Silva felt ready to audition for the
Actors StudioThe Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947 by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who taught...
. He was one of five students chosen out of more than 2,500 applicants.
Henry Silva (born September 15, 1928) is an American actor who has played a wide variety of movie roles.
Silva was born in
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
of
SicilianSicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
and
SpanishSpanish people or Spaniards constitute the nationality and ethnic group of natives of Spain, a European country in the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. The Spanish nationality is in essence made up of regional nationalities, reflecting the complex history of Spain...
descent. He grew up in
HarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.Harlem has been defined by a series...
and quit school when he was 13 years old to attend drama classes, supporting himself as a dishwasher and waiter in a
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
hotel.
By 1955, Silva felt ready to audition for the
Actors StudioThe Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947 by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who taught...
. He was one of five students chosen out of more than 2,500 applicants. When the Studio staged
Michael V. GazzoMichael Vincente Gazzo was a Broadway playwright who later in life became an American film and television actor....
's play,
A Hatful of RainA Hatful of Rain is a 1957 dramatic film. It stars Eva Marie Saint, Don Murray, Anthony Franciosa, Lloyd Nolan and Henry Silva.The movie was adapted by Michael V. Gazzo, Alfred Hayes and Carl Foreman from the play by Gazzo. It was directed by Fred Zinnemann and features a strong musical score by...
as a classroom project, it proved so successful that it was presented in
BroadwayBroadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
, with students
Ben GazzaraBiagio Anthony “Ben” Gazzara is an American actor in television and motion pictures.-Early life:Gazzara was born in New York City, the son of Italian immigrants Angelina and Antonio Gazzara, who was a laborer. Gazzara grew up on New York's tough Lower East Side. He actually lived on E...
,
Shelley WintersShelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television.-Early life:...
,
Harry GuardinoHarry Guardino was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. In 1964, he was cast in a short-lived CBS series entitled The Reporter, a drama about a hard-hitting investigative journalist named Danny Taylor...
, Tony Franciosa, and Silva in key roles. Silva also appeared in the play's film version.
In Hollywood, he played a succession of
villainA villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
s in films including
The Tall TThe Tall T is a 1957 western film directed by Budd Boetticher. It was adapted by Burt Kennedy from Elmore Leonard's short story "The Captives."...
,
The BravadosThe Bravados is a 1958 western film , directed by Henry King starring Gregory Peck and Joan Collins. Supporting cast includes Stephen Boyd, Henry Silva, Albert Salmi, Kathleen Gallant, Barry Coe, George Voskovec, Lee Van Cleef and Gene Evans.-Plot:Jim Douglas is a rancher who has been pursuing for...
,
Green MansionsGreen Mansions is a 1959 American romantic adventure film directed by Mel Ferrer. Based upon the 1904 novel Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson, the film starred Audrey Hepburn as Rima, a jungle girl who falls in love with a traveller played by Anthony Perkins. Also appearing in the film were...
,
Johnny Cool, and the original
The Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian Candidate is a Cold War political thriller film starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury and featuring Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish and John McGiver...
, in which his character was Asian. He was one of the 11 casino robbers in the 1960
Rat PackThe Rat Pack was a group of popular entertainers originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a group that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter...
caper film
Ocean's ElevenOcean's Eleven is the name of two caper films:*Ocean's Eleven , the original heist film starring all five members of the Rat Pack*Ocean's Eleven , a remake of the above film with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon...
.
Silva had a comic role as one of the stepbrothers in the 1960
Jerry LewisJerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, film producer, writer, film director, singer and humanitarian. He is best-known for his slapstick humor in stage, screen, television, radio, recording and is also known for his charity fund-raising telethons and position as national chairman for the...
film
CinderfellaCinderfella is a comedy version of the classic Cinderella story, with several of the roles reversed. It was released December 16, 1960 by Paramount Pictures and stars Jerry Lewis as Fella.-Plot:...
, a parody of
CinderellaCinderella is a well-known classic folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances which suddenly change to remarkable fortune...
with Lewis in the title role, and appeared in starring roles in several filmed episodes of
The Outer LimitsThe Outer Limits or Outer Limits may refer to:*The Outer Limits , a black-and-white science fiction series that aired from 1963 to 1965...
, a science-fiction anthology television series in the United States.
He sometimes played heavies on TV. For example, he played a hit man in "Better Bargain" on
Alfred Hitchcock PresentsAlfred Hitchcock Presents is an anthology television series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers and mysteries...
. Other TV roles included an episode of
Rod SerlingRodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter and television producer, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. He was known in the more secular community as being an atheist despite converting to Unitarianism...
's
Night GalleryNight Gallery is Rod Serling’s follow-up series to The Twilight Zone that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973. Serling functioned both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although he did not have the same control of content and tone as he did on The Twilight...
and the episode
The Enemies from season one of
Voyage to the Bottom of the SeaVoyage to the Bottom of the Sea is a 1960s American Science Fiction television series based on the 1961 film of the same name. Both were created by Irwin Allen, which enabled the movie's sets, costumes, props, special effects models, and sometimes footage, to be used in the production of the...
(as General Tau).
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 westernSpaghetti Western, also known in some countries in mainland Europe as the Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Italians, usually in co-production with a Spanish partner.The typical team...
,
The Hills Run RedThe Hills Run Red is one of the earliest spaghetti westerns made after the Eastwood/Leone Italian western boom, in 1967 and directed by Carlo Lizzani...
, which made him a hot box-office commodity in
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, and
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
.
Returning to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the 1970s, he co-starred with
Frank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers." His professional career had stalled by the...
in
Contract on Cherry StreetContract on Cherry Street, a novel by Phillip Rosenberg about a New York police detective who turns vigilante against the mob when one of his partners is gunned down, was adapted for television in 1977 by Frank Sinatra's production company Artanis. Directed by William A...
, then signed on as
Buck RogersBuck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979 - 1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series...
' evil adversary
Killer KaneKiller Kane is a fictional character in the 1939 Buck Rogers serial film produced by Universal Studios. Kane is a gangster who became the supreme dictator of Earth with the help of his criminal army. Although the events of the serial transpire in the year 2440, Kane has apparently ruled the world...
. In the 1980s and 1990s, he appeared as a drug-addicted hitman in
Burt ReynoldsBurton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Paul "Wrecking" Crewe in The Longest Yard, Coach Nate Scarborough in the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard, Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, J.J...
'
Sharky's MachineSharky's Machine is a 1981 motion picture directed by Burt Reynolds, who stars in the title role. The movie is an adaptation of William Diehl's first novel Sharky's Machine , with a screenplay by Gerald Di Pego....
, the villainous
CIAThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
agent Kurt Zagon in
Steven SeagalSteven F. Seagal is an American action movie actor, producer, writer, director, martial artist, philanthropist, guitarist, and singer-songwriter...
's debut,
Above the LawAbove the Law is a 1988 action film directed by Andrew Davis, probably best-known for being the film debut of Steven Seagal. This came about after a successful screen test, financed by Michael Ovitz, led to Seagal being offered a contract by Warner Bros...
; as a sinister
mobOrganized crime or criminal organizations can be defined as a transnational grouping of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for the purpose of generating a monetary profit...
hitman in
Dick Tracy; as the voice of the supervillain
BaneBane is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 , and was created by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench and Graham Nolan. Bane has been one of Batman's most intelligent and physically powerful foes...
in
Batman: The Animated SeriesBatman: The Animated Series is an American animated series adaptation of the comic book series starring the DC Comics superhero, Batman. The series is noted for being the first to take place in the DC Animated Universe. It was produced by Warner Bros. Animation.The visual style of the series is...
and
The New Batman AdventuresThe New Batman Adventures is the successor to the Emmy Award-winning Batman: The Animated Series produced by Warner Bros. Animation. Although bearing different character designs and animation styles, both shows take place in the same continuity, with TNBA set a few years after Batman: TAS...
; and as the sorrowful and doomed crime boss Ray Vargo in
Ghost Dog: The Way of the SamuraiGhost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 samurai action film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. Forest Whitaker stars as the title character, the mysterious "Ghost Dog", an African-American hitman in the employ of the Mafia, who follows the ancient code of the samurai as outlined in the book...
.