Career
Gardenia played a small role in the film "The House on 92nd Street," and bit parts in other films, including "Cop Hater," and "A View From the Bridge." He first spoke English onstage in 1955, as a pirate in the Broadway play "In April Once." The following year at age 28, he appeared as Piggy in his off Broadway debut in The Man with the Golden Arm in 1956. He described his role in the film Little Murders as a "turning point". He won Obie Awards in 1960 and 1969.
In 1972, he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in The Prisoner of Second Avenue and in 1979 he was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in Ballroom. In film, he was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in Bang the Drum Slowly and Moonstruck.
In television, Gardenia won the 1990 Emmy Award for his performance in Age-Old Friends, with Hume Cronyn. Among his best remembered TV roles is his portrayal of Frank Lorenzo, Archie Bunker's neighbor on All in the Family (1973–74) and as J. Edgar Hoover in the miniseries Kennedy (1983).
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