Dominic Chianese
Credit: Getty Images
2005

Dominic Chianese

Biography

Dominic Chianese was born on February 24th,1931, and is an American actor, singer and musician. He was born in the Bronx and begun his illustrious career after graduating from the Bronx Highschool of Science in 1948 and then graduating from Brooklyn College. After decades of honing his acting skills on stage and screen, and eventually making a name for himself, Dominican became most widely recognized for his role as Uncle Junior on the hit HBO mob series The Sopranos, beginning in 1999. After his first film role in 1972, in a drama called Fuzz, he embarked on what would become the trademark of his career with his first gangster role as Johnny Ola, in Coppola’s The Godfather Pt II in 1974 which starred Al Pacino. Chianese also appeared in All the President’s Men in 1976, and would work with Pacino again in the 1979 thriller … And Justice For all. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Chianese had numerous roles of all kinds from major feature films to stage to made-for-TV Movies and he was a budding star on TV. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series for his role in The Sopranos and was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of all his humanitarian efforts. Most recently he appeared as a guest actor on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire for three seasons and released a book co-authored by Matthew Sargent.

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