Joe Spinell

Joe Spinell (born Joseph Spagnuolo; October 28, 1936 – January 13, 1989) was an American character actor who appeared in films in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as various stage productions on and off Broadway. He played supporting roles in film including The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), Rocky (1976), Rocky II (1979), Taxi Driver (1976), Sorcerer (1977) and Cruising (1980). Until Spinell's passing in 1989, his career ranged from bit to major supporting roles. Spinell played lead roles in horror films, sharing the screen with actress Caroline Munro in the first two: the psychological slasher film Maniac (1980), the horror comedy The Last Horror Film (1982), and the slasher film The Undertaker (1988) released posthumously. Early life Spinell was born Joseph Spagnuolo in Manhattan, New York, the youngest of six children of Italian immigrant parents. His father, Pelegrino Spagnuolo (1892–1950), died from liver and kidney disease. His mother, Filomena Spagnuolo (1903–1987), was an actress who played bit parts in several movies, some of them alongside her son. Spinell was born at his family's apartment on Second Avenue in Kips Bay, Manhattan, an area then home to 10,000 Italian Americans. A few years after the death of his father, he moved with his mother and older siblings to Woodside, Queens, New York, where he lived off-and-on for the remainder of his life. In the mid and late 1970s when living in California, he lived in an apartment in the Oakwood Apartments complex near Toluca Lake located on Barham Boulevard. He was known to heavily abuse drugs and alcohol intermittently throughout his career, especially during periods of unemployment. Spinell was born with hemophilia and had chronic asthma for most of his life. Career