Character Actor Dennis Farina Dead at 69

He was a character actor extraordinaire, with a great voice and a natural sense of timing and delivery. Best known for crime dramas, the Italian-American actor was adept at playing both sides of the law but may have been most comfortable playing detectives because he himself had been a Chicago police officer for 18 years before he began his acting career. I first noticed him as Jack Crawford (the same character played by Scott Glenn in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) in the great 1987 thriller MANHUNTER,  directed by Michael Mann who had discovered Farina and gave him his first role in THIEF (1981). He was also memorable as Mr. Barboni in GET SHORTY, mobster Jimmy Serrano in the 1998 film MIDNIGHT RUN, and had enjoyed recent success as ‘Walt’ on the TV series The New Girl. Farina suffered a blood clot in his lung and died this morning at age 69.