From Chicago cop to celebrity, Dennis Farina never forgot what he learned in grammar school
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Actor Dennis Farina arrives at the Hollywood premiere of the HBO series "Luck" in Los Angeles, California on January 25, 2012. Farina, a former Chicago policeman turned tough-guy actor, died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Monday, the actor's publicist said. (Gus Ruelas/Reuters)
By Rick Kogan
August 7, 2005
This article by Chicago Tribune's Rick Kogan was originally published on August 7, 2005.
Some people are impossible to imagine as a kid and Dennis Farina is one of them, even as he sits across a table saying, "And the teacher, the nun, would say to us, 'OK, boys, now move these boxes' or 'Put these chairs over there,' and then she would say, 'Here's your reward' and give us some candy."
He is saying this--remembering what it was like growing up and going to school here and learning lessons that he continues to carry through life-while sitting in a restaurant named Phil Stefani's 437 but which was once called Riccardo's and was the setting for the opening scene of the 1986-88 NBC television series "Crime Story."
This is important because with that opening scene, Farina's life was changed forever.
Before then he was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, a detective moonlighting on Chicago theater stages and in small movie roles. With the series, he became a full-time actor much in demand for feature films ("Midnight Run," "Saving Private Ryan," "Get Shorty," "Snatch"), TV movies ("The Case of the Hillside Strangler," "Empire Falls") and TV series ("The In-Laws," "Buddy Faro").
He is currently one of the stars of "Law & Order," playing tough, nattily dressed Detective Joe Fontana.
"I had met ('Law & Order' creator and executive producer) Dick Wolf a long time ago when I worked on some episodes of 'Miami Vice' when he was a producer of that show," says Farina. "I wasn't so sure about signing up for 'Law & Order.' I liked the show, but another TV series? I'll tell you, though, it's been great and I had no idea how popular the show was."
In other words, walking down Chicago streets now, he is instantly recognizable and people stare, point, do double takes, shout "Hey, Dennis!" and otherwise disrupt the relative anonymity this legendarily private man used to enjoy when he returned to his hometown.
"It doesn't really bother me," he says. "Chicago's always a friendly place to me."
Farina was born on Feb. 29, 1944, a leap-year baby and the fourth son and youngest of the seven children of Joseph and Yolanda Farina. The father was a doctor, the mother a homemaker, and they raised their kids in a home at 549 W. North Ave. in an area that was then a working-class neighborhood with a broad ethnic mix predominated by Italians and Germans.
He went to school right around the corner from his home, at St. Michael's Elementary and St. Michael's Central High School. They no longer exist; the high school closed first, in 1978, the grammar school three years later. Declining enrollment and financial difficulties were cited as the reasons, and you will now find townhouses where the schools and the Farina home once stood.
"Change never bothers me, not really," Farina says. "I don't need to see the old school to remember it and the teachers there. They changed the way that I've always looked at life and learning."
His favorite was Sister Mary Arnoldine. "I had her in the 5th grade and the 7th grade," he says. "She was the first person to start giving me lessons that I still use, lessons that didn't so much come from books. She helped me out in life, taught me a lot about responsibility and reward. That was what the moving the chairs and boxes was about, I think. And we did a lot of things for charity, and learned that charity is its own reward.
Many of the priests teaching were World War II vets, and the nuns had lived through a Depression and the war. There was nothing we could say or do that could surprise them."
Was he a good student?
"I passed everything," he says, a smile breaking out beneath his mustache. "I got diplomas to prove it.”
"I wasn't a great student," he adds, "but I wasn't a bad kid or anything like that. I made some mistakes, but the mistakes I made, I made myself. I knew right from wrong and when I did wrong it was nobody's fault but my own. One of the brothers at the school was a former Golden Gloves champ, so you didn't want to mess around too much. The priests and nuns were firm but fair. But I caught it a few times from them."
He says he has no regrets about the way he grew up. "No traumas; I had a great childhood. I always got to come home for lunch, we lived so close. It was no cafeteria food for me-I was having chicken Vesuvio. And I remember that the boys and girls in high school were separated by the library. We'd always go check out books when we knew the girls were going to be in there. I played basketball, softball. It was great."
After graduating from high school, Farina decided to "get the Army out of the way" and served three years before returning to Chicago. He worked for a while at the South Water produce market until, on the advice of his older brother, a lawyer, he joined the police force and studied criminal justice at Truman Junior College.
He does not like to talk about his years on the force, primarily because during his first interviews as an actor, writers continually asked him questions such as, "Did you ever kill anybody?" (He did not.)
"I left that life a long time ago," he says. "I was a good cop, a good detective, and I've still got some good friends on the force. No, I don't offer any inside information to the 'Law & Order' writers. I'm an actor now."
He left Truman College a few hours short of his criminal justice degree. "I'm still thinking that I might go back and finish," he says. "I can only imagine how that would please my brother Joe. He was a lawyer. He's in Heaven now.”
His brother was a big influence on him, he says, as were other members of his family and his teachers.
"Not like today," he observes. "There weren't sports stars or singers or actors as role models. The models were at home and at school."
Farina is 61, and his former teachers are all "in Heaven now." But he saw some of his classmates at the recent wedding of one of his sons; he has three from a previous marriage, Michael, Joseph and Dennis Jr. "We stay in touch," he says of these old classmates. "A lot of the guys I grew up with, we get together when I'm home."
When not working, which has been most of this summer, Farina is here, splitting his time between a 25th-floor apartment on the North Side and a house in New Buffalo, Mich., in an area where he has dozens of relatives. He likes to play golf, to read and to see his family.
"Sometimes I think we're all stuck in about 1948," he says. "When I get together with my brothers and sisters, playing cards or whatever, it's always like: 'Do you remember this guy or that place?' 'Do you remember when we saw such and such a movie at the Plaza?' It's fun to come back home."
His enthusiasm for the city animates one of his latest projects, "My Kind of Town," an audio CD written by comic-actor Aaron Freeman. The CD features Farina's distinctive voice (and accent) telling such historical tales as that of Cap Streeter; exploring such timeless topics as the river, the lake and Wrigley Field.
"It was a fun thing to do," he says. "It's probably geared mostly for tourists, but anybody would like these stories. They remind us what an amazing town this is. Sometimes we forget."
He is also excited about being part of "We Celebrate: A Salute to Chicago's Finest," a benefit for the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation on Aug. 27 at McCormick Place. Hosted by comedian Tom Dreesen, it will feature Farina, some of the 1985 Bears and other Chicago stage actors who made good, including Gary Sinise, Dennis Franz, William Petersen and Joe Mantegna.
"It'll be nice to see some of those guys," Farina says. "Acting has always been a work in progress for me. I learned so much in the early days from people like Billy [Petersen] and [John] Mahoney, Dennis, Gary, Joe, so many people. I knew nothing and they took their time with me. That's the way it's been ever since. In movies I got to learn from actors like Gene Hackman."
"I'm still learning. I don't think that schooling ever ends with a degree," he says. "Maybe this is something I learned from Sister Arnoldine a long time ago, but I'll tell you, I still really believe that life is school."
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rkogan@tribune.com
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi--dennis-farina-2005-profile-20130722,0,4305836,full.story
Dennis Farina dead at 69
Tribune staff and wire reports
1:44 p.m. CDT, July 22, 2013
Dennis Farina, a Chicago native and police officer who turned to acting, has died at 69 in Arizona, his publicist said today.
Farina, best known as detective Joe Fontana on the long-running TV series "Law & Order," suffered a blood clot in his lung, publicist Lori De Waal said.
Farina was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, a detective who moonlighted on Chicago theater stages and in small movie roles. In the 1980s he was on the NBC television series "Crime Story."
He became a full-time actor much in demand for feature films ("Midnight Run," "Saving Private Ryan," "Get Shorty," "Snatch"), TV movies ("The Case of the Hillside Strangler," "Empire Falls") and TV series ("The In-Laws," "Buddy Faro").
He then became one of the stars of "Law & Order," playing tough, nattily dressed Detective Joe Fontana.
Farina was born on Feb. 29, 1944, the fourth son and youngest of the seven children of Joseph and Yolanda Farina. The father was a doctor, the mother a homemaker, and they raised their kids in a home at 549 W. North Ave. in an area that was then a working-class neighborhood with a broad ethnic mix predominated by Italians and Germans.
He went to school right around the corner from his home, at St. Michael's Elementary and St. Michael's Central High School.
After graduating from high school, Farina decided to "get the Army out of the way" and served three years before returning to Chicago. He worked for a while at the South Water produce market until, on the advice of his older brother, a lawyer, he joined the police force and studied criminal justice at Truman Junior College.
The actor is survived by his three sons, six grandchildren and the love of his life of 35 years, Marianne Cahill.
Funeral services are pending.
Tribune staff reporter Rick Kogan, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-dennis-farina-dead-20130722,0,4544905.story
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