(CelebNMusic247-News) Dennis Farina Dead at 69!
Actor Dennis Farina, has died according to his publicist. The 69-year-old was a Chicago police officer before switching careers.
Farina died after suffering a blood clot in his lung. He leaves behind three children and two grandchildren.
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, reports ChicagoTribune.
