Dennis Farina

 Dennis Farina (February 29, 1944 – July 22, 2013)

He was a character actor, often typecast as a mobster or police officer. His most known film roles are those of mobster Jimmy Serrano in the comedy Midnight Run and Ray "Bones" Barboni in Get Shorty. He starred on television as Lieutenant Mike Torello on Crime Story and as NYPD Detective Joe Fontana on Law & Order. He also hosted and narrated a revived version of Unsolved Mysteries. His last major television role was in HBO's Luck, which premiered on January 29, 2012. Before becoming an actor, Farina served three years in the United States Army, followed by 18 years in the Chicago Police Department's burglary division, from 1967 to 1985. Farina began working for director Michael Mann as a police consultant, which led Mann to cast him in a small role in the 1981 film Thief. Farina's Law & Order character, Detective Fontana, worked for Chicago Homicide before his transfer to the NYPD. Fontana shared a number of other characteristics with the actor who played him; they came from the same Chicago neighborhood, attended the same parochial school, and had the same tastes in clothes and music and were fans of the Chicago Cubs. Farina died on July 22, 2013, in a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona after suffering a pulmonary embolism, he was 69. Dennis Farina is buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.