Joseph Anthony Mantegna (born November 13, 1947) is an Italian-American actor, producer, writer and director, best known for his roles in box-office hits such as Three Amigos and The Godfather Part III and in TV series like Joan of Arcadia and Criminal Minds.
He portrayed Joey Zasa in The Godfather Part III and Pippi De Lena in The Last Don and The Last Don II.
Biography[]
While still a young man in Chicago, he played bass in a band called The Apocryphals. His band played with another local group, which went on to form the band Chicago.
Meshach Taylor, Jose Martinez, Dennis Franz and yours truly, doing Wonderful Ice Cream suit circa 1973 (from his Twitter)
Mantegna made his acting debut in the 1969 stage production of Hair before joining Chicago's Organic Theatre Company. He quickly become a mainstay of the fertile Chicago theater scene of the '70s and '80s, and while working with them he was nominated for a 1974 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Actor in a Principal Role for his performance in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and again for a 1977 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Volpone, along with taking two European tours with them.
Mantegna has played a wide range of roles, from the comic as a fed up shock jock in Airheads and the hilariously inept kidnapper from Baby's Day Out, to the dramatic in roles in Woody Allen's Alice and Celebrity, in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III as treacherous mobster Joey Zasa, in Barry Levinson's Liberty Heights and Bugsy, in Steven Zaillian's Searching for Bobby Fischer and in Billy Crystal's Forget Paris. He did not become widely known until he played a recurring role on the TV show Soap. From there he got a starring role in the miniseries of Mario Puzo's best-selling novel The Last Don, which garnered him a 1997 Emmy Award nomination, and again starred in its sequel, The Last Don II. In the 1998 The Rat Pack he was nominated for both another Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for his performance as singer Dean Martin. His third Emmy Award nomination was for his role in the 2007 miniseries The Starter Wife.
His original feature films for cable include starring roles in State of Emergency, My Little Assassin, The Comrades of Summer, Persons Unknown and the Water Engine among others.
From the book The Complete Guide to Cigars by Playboy
He starred as Justice Joseph Novelli in the TV series First Monday (2002) and as police chief Will Girardi in the popular and critically acclaimed series, Joan of Arcadia. The latter received several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations during its two seasons run from 2003-2005.
Since 2007, he has been cast as a main character of the hit drama series Criminal Minds, as FBI SSA David Rossi, a retired profiler who makes a comeback to the BAU because of mysterious unfinished business. As rich and varied as his career is, he seems to enjoy his recurring role in the animated series The Simpsons as the voice of mob boss Anthony Fat Tony D'Amico.
Mantegna received the Lifetime Achievement Award on April 26, 2004, at the Los Angeles Italian Film Festival.
