Always loved him, in any role. I inserted the title of one of my favorite movies of his, 'Big Trouble', with Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Stanley Tucci, Tom Sizemore, and Jason Lee. Hilarious comedy, about a nuclear device smuggled into the US, that was slated for release just about the time 911 happened. Really awful timing, that buried an excellent dark comedy.
>From wikipedia: "Big Trouble was originally scheduled for release on September 21, 2001 and had a strong advertising push. The events of September 11 of that year cast an unshakable pall over the movie's comedic smuggling of a nuclear device onto an airplane. (A gun also makes its way onto the plane, but this was easily overshadowed by the specter of the WMD.) Consequently, the film was pushed back until April 2002, and the promotion campaign was toned down almost to the point of abandonment. Big Trouble came quietly to American theaters and left quickly afterwards, receiving mixed reviews and being generally ignored by audiences, becoming a box office bomb." Dennis Farina, star of 'Law & Order,' dead at 69 July 22, 2013, 1:15 PM EST NEW YORK (AP) -- Dennis Farina, a onetime Chicago cop who as a popular actor played a cop on "Law & Order," has died. Farina died Monday morning in a Scottsdale, Ariz., hospital after suffering a blood clot in his lung, according to his publicist, Lori De Waal. He was 69. For three decades, Farina was a character actor who displayed remarkable dexterity, charm and, when called for, toughness, making effective use of his craggy face, steel-gray hair, ivory smile and ample mustache. Farina appeared in films including "Get Shorty," "Saving Private Ryan," "Midnight Run" and "Out Of Sight." Among his many TV portrayals was Detective Joe Fontana on "Law & Order" during the 2004-06 seasons. He starred in the 1980s cult favorite "Crime Story" and was a regular in the 2011-12 HBO drama "Luck." He recently completed shooting a comedy, "Lucky Stiff." A veteran of the Chicago theater, Farina appeared in Joseph Mantegna's "Bleacher Bums" and "Streamers," directed by Terry Kinney, among other productions. Born Feb. 29, 1944, in Chicago, he was a city detective before he found his way into the acting profession as he neared his forties. His first film was the 1981 action drama "Thief," directed by Michael Mann, whom he had met through a mutual friend while still working for the Chicago Police Department. "I remember going to the set that day and being intrigued by the whole thing," Farina recalled in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press. "I liked it. And everybody was extremely nice to me. If the people were rude and didn't treat me right, things could have gone the other way." Farina is survived by three sons, six grandchildren and his longtime partner, Marianne Cahill.
