Anthony Franciosa (October 25, 1928 – January 19, 2006), usually billed as Tony Franciosa during the height of his career, was an American film, TV and stage actor. He made several feature films, including Career (1959) for which he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor/Drama. In television, along with many minor parts, he played lead roles in five major TV series: the sitcom Valentine’s Day (1964–65), drama The Name of the Game (1968–71), Search (1972–73), Matt Helm (1975) and Finder of Lost Lives (1984). However, he began as a successful stage actor, gaining a Tony Award nomination for the drug-addiction play A Hatful of Rain.
- He married four times, the longest of which marriages lasted 36 years, to his last wife, Rita Theil. He had been married during 1957–1960 to Academy Award-winning actress Shelley Winters, who died five days before him.
Born Anthony George Papaleo to an Italian-American family (his grandparents emigrated from Meli, Basilicaa, in 1890), and raised by his mother and aunt, he adopted his mother's maiden name Franciosa as his professional name.
Acting Career
In 1948 he joined the Cherry Lane Theatre Group off Broadway (at the same time as actress Beatricer Arthur). Within two years, he'd been accepted as a member of the Actors Studio, which would prove an invaluable resource going forward. In the meantime, though, It would be a few years more before Franciosa could make a living from acting. In the meantime, he worked a variety of jobs which included being a waiter, dishwasher, day laborer, and messenger boy. Several years later he garnered rave reviews and a Tony Award nomination for his Broadway performance of the play A Hatful of Rain.
When he reprised his role in the film version in 1957, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He followed that with roles in several major films, including The Naked Maja (1959) with Ava Gardner, A Face in the Crowd with Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal, Career with Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine, The Long Hot Summer with Paul Newman and Orson Welles, Period of Adjustment with Jane Fonda, The Pleasure Seekers with Ann-Margaret and Carol Lynley, Fathom in 1967 with Raquel Welch, The Drowning Pool with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and Rio Conchos with Richard Boone and Stuart Whitman. He also appeared in a prominent co-starring role in the Frank Sinatra film Assault on a Queen (1966) and was later in the seventies film of the Jackie Collins book The World is Full of Married Men.
He guest-starred in such television series as Jack Palance’s circus drama, The Greatest Show on Earth, which aired on ABC from 1963–1964. That same season, he appeared in the ABC medical drama about psychiatry, Breaking Point.
Producer David Dortort was on the verge of casting him as Cameron Mitchell’s best friend and brother-in-law, Manolito Montoya, on the western, The High Chaparral, if Henry Darrow did not make it in time. Unfortunately for Franciosa, he lost the part, because Darrow had arrived on the set, right on time, before filming was about to begin, in two weeks.
Eager to act in any medium, he became a series lead in the sitcom Valentine’s Day and drama TV series The Name of the Game (and its pilot TV-movie Fame is the Name of the Game), as lead role of charismatic but doggedly determined star reporter 'Jeff Dillon', alternating the regular lead spot with Gene Barry and Robert Stack. He had a further alternating lead role, this time alongside Hugh O’Brien and Doug McClure, as agent 'Nick Bianco' in Search, and in Matt Helm. In the 1980s he starred in the Aaron Spelling-produced series Finder of Lost Loves. Franciosa also made notable guest star appearances as a villain in the Western series The Virginian (episode: 'Holocaust' aka 'The Shiloh Years') and later The Men from Shiloh, plus was star of the Theatre of Stars episode "A Case of Armed Robbery" convincingly playing a man with feelings of alienation from a society driven to crime.
Awards
Billed as "Anthony Franciosa", he won the 1960 Golden Globe Award fo Brest Actor –Motion Picture Drama for the role "Sam Lawson" in Career (1959), opposite Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. He had won the Globe competing with actors Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur, Richard Burton in Look Back in Anger, Fredric March in Middle of the Night and Joseph Schildkraut as Otto Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank.
In 1958, Franciosa had been nominated for an Academy Award for his role as "Polo Pope" in the film version of A Hatful of Rain (1957), opposite Eva Marie Saint and Don Murray (actor) as his brother, "Johnny" addicted to morphine.
Quotations
Rita, when asked about Anthony's hair-trigger temper said, "He was never taught how to control his temper ... I changed him a lot ... We still have good fights once in a while, but I can scream back at him."
Tony, reflecting about Rita's influence on him, said,
- "It took years of therapy and simply living through things to finally accept and enjoy myself. My wife Rita's influence has been profound in that process. Her family was a product of The Great Disaster — World War II. She emerged from the flames with a remarkable buoyancy. Each day she rises with an optimism, a serenity toward life that is certainly contagious. Does that sound romantic? If so, so be it."
Winters won an Academy Award in 1960, and later said, "The night I won my first Oscar my husband took one look at it and I knew my marriage was over."
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