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Raymond Vecchio

 

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Raymond Vecchio



 
 
Detective Raymond "Ray" Vecchio is a fictional character
Fictional character

A character is any person, persona, identity, or entity that exists in a The arts. The process of conveying information about characters in fiction is called characterisation....
 in the television series Due South
Due South

Due South is an award-winning Canada television police comedy-drama created by Paul Haggis and produced by Alliance Communications , first aired in 1994....
. He is a detective with the Chicago Police Department
Chicago Police Department

The Chicago Police Department, also known as the CPD, is the principal Police Law enforcement agency of the City of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, under the jurisdiction of the Mayor of Chicago....
, serving with the 27th Precinct. The character is portrayed by actor David Marciano
David Marciano

David Marciano is an American actor who appeared as Detective Raymond Vecchio in the television series Due South. He also appeared in the FX police drama The Shield as Detective List of characters from The Shield#Steve Billings....
.

Character
Ray was born and grew up in Chicago, raised as a Roman Catholic. He is the patriarch of a large family - including his mother, sister Francesca Vecchio, sister Maria and her husband Tony, many nieces and nephews and a brother who lives outside of Chicago.






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Encyclopedia


Detective Raymond "Ray" Vecchio is a fictional character
Fictional character

A character is any person, persona, identity, or entity that exists in a The arts. The process of conveying information about characters in fiction is called characterisation....
 in the television series Due South
Due South

Due South is an award-winning Canada television police comedy-drama created by Paul Haggis and produced by Alliance Communications , first aired in 1994....
. He is a detective with the Chicago Police Department
Chicago Police Department

The Chicago Police Department, also known as the CPD, is the principal Police Law enforcement agency of the City of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, under the jurisdiction of the Mayor of Chicago....
, serving with the 27th Precinct. The character is portrayed by actor David Marciano
David Marciano

David Marciano is an American actor who appeared as Detective Raymond Vecchio in the television series Due South. He also appeared in the FX police drama The Shield as Detective List of characters from The Shield#Steve Billings....
.

Character


Ray was born and grew up in Chicago, raised as a Roman Catholic. He is the patriarch of a large family - including his mother, sister Francesca Vecchio, sister Maria and her husband Tony, many nieces and nephews and a brother who lives outside of Chicago. His father, who Ray had a strained relationship with, died in 1989 and did not care for police officers, which might explain by way of rebellion why Ray became one. Ray is divorced from ex-wife Angie, and has been involved with a few women since. He has had an antagonistic relationship since childhood with a neighborhood mafioso, Don Frank Zuko, and an on-and-off relationship with Zuko's sister, Irene. His best friend and de-facto partner is a Canadian Mountie
Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is the federal police, national police, and paramilitary police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world....
, Constable Benton Fraser
Benton Fraser

Constable Benton Fraser is a fictional character in the television series Due South. He is a constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who works in the American city of Chicago, Illinois as Deputy Liaison Officer....
, who is assigned to the Canadian Consulate in Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
, and the two often help each other solve crimes and right wrongs in the city of Chicago (and, on rare occasion, in Canada itself).

Fraser is Ray's polar opposite in many ways - whereas the Mountie is polite, well-mannered, and obeys the law to the letter, Ray is loud, brash, and will often bend or break the rules to solve a case. Much of the comedy of the show is derived from their differences. The two also have much in common. Both care deeply about their communities, both had troubled relationships with their deceased fathers, and both can be highly tenacious investigators (once Ray can be motivated to become involved with a case) with a strong sense of justice.

Ray is obsessed with mint green 1971 Buick Riviera
Buick Riviera

The Buick Riviera is an automobile produced by Buick in the United States from the 1963 to 1999 model years, with 1,127,261 produced.A full-size coup? or personal luxury car, the early models of the Riviera in particular have been highly praised by automotive journalists and writers....
s. He has currently owned at least three of them - the first was blown up during a gunfight to save Vecchio and Fraser's lives, the second was destroyed by a car bomb, and the third was also fitted with a bomb and was driven into Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, and the only one located entirely within the United States. The third-largest of the Great Lakes, it is bounded, from west to east, by the U.S....
.

Ray is unskilled with computers, preferring instead to use a typewriter (although he is a poor typist). He relies heavily on Civilian Aide Elaine Besbriss to do much of his research for him, and will occasionally have Fraser type for him. He also has a black book full of various officials he has blackmail information on, though most of it proves to be outdated and useless by the time he ever finds a reason to use it (to help Fraser with a legal matter). In spite of all of that, and his large back-log of cases, he is a skilled and effective detective.

Ray had to suddenly leave Chicago at the start of the third season. It turned out he had an uncanny resemblance to Armando 'the Bookman' Langoustini, a Mob lieutenant in Las Vegas. After the Bookman died in a car crash, Ray was sent undercover to replace him. To protect his identity, Ray himself was impersonated by Detective Stanley Ray Kowalski
Stanley Kowalski (Due South)

Detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski is a fictional character in the television series Due South. He is a Polish-American detective with the Chicago Police Department, serving with the 27th Precinct....
, who posed as Ray Vecchio for the next year until Vecchio's return in the series finale.

In the finale, Vecchio is shot during a protracted gunfight, and the bullet proves to be his "Golden Bullet", allowing him to retire. He moves to Florida with Detective Kowalski's ex-wife, a District Attorney named Stella.