Anthony LaPaglia Biography
Born: January 31, 1959
Despite spending the first 25 years of his life in Adelaide, Australia, Anthony LaPaglia is best known for playing street-savvy Italian New Yorkers. This was not, however, LaPaglia's original plan. Rather than testing the waters of show business, LaPaglia traveled to the United States intending to pursue a full-time teaching career. As luck would have it, however, one of LaPaglia's odd jobs was a small role in Cold_Steel (1987), a low-budget detective drama. LaPaglia began pursuing theater and television in his spare time -- one of his more notable early performances was in 1988's Frank_Nitti:_The_Enforcer -- and considered himself a full-time actor by 1989, when he made his feature-film debut in Slaves of New York. It was 1990, however, when the young actor earned critical recognition for his role as an exceedingly polite mobster in Betsy's_Wedding.
LaPaglia continued to build his resumé throughout the early '90s, most of which he spent playing either kindly policemen or good-hearted mobsters, and was delighted to work alongside a variety of noted actors so early in his career. Among those actors were Alan_Alda in Betsy's_Wedding, Michael_Keaton in One_Good_Cop (1991), and Nathan_Lane, Sharon_Stone, and Kevin_Bacon in He_Said,_She_Said (1992). Later in 1992, LaPaglia could be found playing his first leading role in George_Gallo's gangster farce 29th_Street. Though the film did not fare particularly well, audiences were nonetheless impressed with LaPaglia's intensity, and he played a more serious gangster with great success opposite Susan_Sarandon in The_Client (1994). The actor switched gears for his next handful of films; in Mixed_Nuts (1994) he played a disillusioned Santa Claus, while Empire_Records (1995) found him as a down-on-his-luck store manager, and the Australian-helmed Brilliant_Lies (1996) featured him as the defendant in a sketchy sexual-harassment case.
Despite a smattering of mediocre films between 1995 and the early 2000s, LaPaglia continued to earn critical acclaim for many of his endeavors, such as Steve_Buscemi's directorial debut, Trees_Lounge (1996), for which LaPaglia joined a star-studded supporting cast, as well as for his role as a detective in Spike_Lee's Summer of Sam (1999). Luckily for him, 2000 and 2001 proved excellent for his career, as it was during this period that he played a wealthy businessman in The House of Mirth and an adulterous police detective in Lantana. In addition to receiving international success, Lantana earned LaPaglia the prestigious Best Actor award from the Australian Film Institute, as well as a nomination from the Film Critics Circle. In the meantime, he was adding several major television credits to his resumé, including a starring role as the head of the FBI's Missing Persons Squad on CBS's Without a Trace, and a recurring role on the long-running sitcom Frasier, a performance for which he would receive an Emmy in 2002. Far removed from his fledgling days as a teacher, 2002 also found LaPaglia working with Val_Kilmer for The_Salton_Sea; Sigourney_Weaver for The_Guys; Robert_De_Niro and Billy_Crystal in Analyze_That; and Eric_Stoltz in Happy_Hour. In 2003, after filming Manhood with Janeane_Garofalo and the late John_Ritter, LaPaglia agreed to star in director Josh_Sternfeld's Winter_Solstice (2004). Tracie Cooper, Rovi
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