Life and Career
Bologna was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Brown University, where he majored in art history. After a hitch with the Marines, Bologna was hired to produce and direct Manhattan-based TV commercials.
Bologna has a long history in film and television. His breakthrough film, Lovers and Other Strangers, written with his wife Renée Taylor, was based on the true-life circumstances of organizing a wedding on short notice with the involvement of his Italian extended family and Renée's Jewish clan. Several relatives performed as extras in the final cut. A year later, in 1971, the couple again collaborated to write and perform in the movie Made for Each Other.
Bologna stayed close with his old-neighborhood aunts and uncles after becoming successful. Two of them were slightly famous on their own: his Uncle Pat was "Blacky the Bootblack", whom Joseph Kennedy credited as his main influence when he sold all of his stock holdings in the summer of 1929 (the market crashed in October), and his aunt Pauline was one of the best-known chefs to the stars, working for Jackie Gleason, Burt Reynolds and many other luminaries.
Bologna's aunt Pauline chastised him for starring in the nudity-contained Blame it on Rio co-starring Michael Caine. Bologna replied, "Blame it on me, it's the last time I invite Aunt Pauline to a film premiere." In 1976 he starred in the television drama What Now, Catherine Curtis? with Lucille Ball, although as Bologna's other best-known film roles are that of temperamental 1950s television star Stan "King" Kaiser in the 1982 comedy hit My Favorite Year, starring Peter O'Toole and of Lenny Koufax, the frustrated father of Sonny Koufax, who was played by Adam Sandler in the 1999 comedy Big Daddy.
By 1987, Bologna was starring in the short-lived TV musical sitcom Rags to Riches as the millionaire mogul turned foster father, Nick Foley. The show aired for two seasons.
He played the mad scientist Dr. Malavaque in the 1985 comedy "Transylvania 6-5000".
From 1996 to 1998, he voice-acted the character Inspector Dan Turpin, a hot-headed police officer modeled after Jack Kirby, in several episodes of Superman: The Animated Series.
In 2006, he became the voice of Mr Start in "Ice Age: The Meltdown."
He is married to actress Renée Taylor, with whom he has a son, Gabriel. Taylor and Bologna have also co-starred on stage and on TV. Bologna played a love interest for his real-life wife in the "Maternal Affairs" episode of the CBS sitcom The Nanny in the sixth and final season in which Taylor plays Sylvia, the already-married mother of Fran Drescher's character. He also appeared in the first season episode "The Gym Teacher" as a famous actor for whom Maxwell Sheffield once interned.
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