Celebrity Biographies
Reni Santoni
He gave life to well-known characters in “Dirty Harry” and the comedy series “Seinfeld.” Reni Santoni passed away on August 1, 2020, at the age of 81, in a Los Angeles hospital, after being diagnosed with cancer. “Those of you who knew him know what a fun, great actor, improviser, performer he was…so brilliant. I loved him and will miss him so much. Another great one is leaving. My love to his son, Nick, who has been his support throughout the last five years or more”, declares her friend Tracy Newman, a screenwriter and television producer, who has been in charge of breaking the news of the death.
Born in New York on April 21, 1939, into a family of French-Spanish descent, Reni Santoni discovered his acting vocation as a child, and began his journey in the theater on the off-Broadway circuit. He later became a writer, premiering the play “Raisin’ Hell in the Son” in 1962.
In cinema he made his debut as a drug addict in Sidney Lumet ‘s The Pawnbroker . Shortly thereafter he was featured as an aspiring act in Carl Reiner ‘s semi-autobiographical comedy Enter Laughing . After playing a soldier in The Battle of Anzio , he was the lieutenant of an imprisoned Mexican revolutionary in The Fury of the Magnificent Seven . His most remembered role on the big screen was that of Inspector Chico González, the rookie cop assigned as a partner – against his will – to Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry .
Despite the success of that film, Reni Santoni spent the next decades almost always in successful television series, such as Lou Grant and Charlie’s Angels . On the small screen, he mostly made it big as Poppie, the owner of an Italian restaurant, in the sitcom Seinfeld . He was also Gonzales, a Hispanic detective in the action film Cobra, the strong arm of the law , with Sylvester Stallone . He retired in 2021, after giving life to a judge, in a chapter of Franklin & Bash , because his health was beginning to fail.