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For over thirty years, Hollywood relied on a select group of actors to convincingly portray mobsters, gamblers, and racketeers. This group often included Joseph Ruskin, Bruce Gordon, Neville Brand, Robert Loggia, and Anthony Caruso. With his square jaw, broad shoulders, and gravelly voice, Caruso was a dependable source of menace, appearing in numerous films and countless television episodes starting in 1941.
Born to Italian-American parents, Caruso chose to abandon a potential opera singing career and instead pursued acting with a stock company in Long Beach, California. A year later, in 1935, he joined the Pasadena Playhouse. He began his film career in minor roles, later remarking that "MGM was the place to be, offering us extras a higher quality of lunch." His film debut was as a henchman named Joe in Johnny Apollo (1940), a role type he would often revisit with character names like Fingers, Dapper Dan Greco, Chips Malloy, Pinky Luiz, and Lucky Grillo. These villainous characters came from various ethnic backgrounds, including Italians, Mexicans, Latinos, Greeks, and Russians. A close friend of actor Alan Ladd, Caruso appeared in eleven of Ladd’s films, first as a hitman in Lucky Jordan (1942). In 1954, he joined Ladd’s newly established stock company, Jaguar Films. When not playing underworld figures (The Iron Mistress (1952), Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), The Asphalt Jungle (1950)), Caruso convincingly portrayed Native American chiefs in films such as Drum Beat (1954), Cattle Queen of Montana (1954), and The Lawless Eighties (1957). On television, he was well-known for his recurring role as the charming yet deadly Comanchero El Lobo on The High Chaparral (1967). Even in the Star Trek (1966) universe, Caruso played crime boss Bela Oxmyx, who manipulated James T. and his crew to eliminate a rival gang and seize control of the government.
Contrasting with his on-screen persona, Caruso was a devoted family man in private life, happily married for 61 years and enjoying simple hobbies like gardening and cooking.
