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Henry Silva
Silva was born in Brooklyn, New York of Sicilian and Spanish descent. He grew up in Harlem and quit school when he was 13 years old to attend drama classes, supporting himself as a dishwasher and waiter in a Manhattan hotel.
By 1955, Silva felt ready to audition for the Actors Studio. He was one of five students chosen out of more than 2,500 applicants. When the Studio staged Michael V. Gazzo's play, A Hatful of Rain as a classroom project, it proved so successful that it was presented in Broadway, with students Ben Gazzara, Shelley Winters, Harry Guardino, Tony Franciosa, and Silva in key roles. Silva also appeared in the play's film version.
In Hollywood, he played a succession of villains in films including The Tall T, The Bravados, Green Mansions, Johnny Cool, and the original The Manchurian Candidate, in which his character was Asian. He was one of the 11 casino robbers in the 1960 Rat Pack caper film Ocean's Eleven.
Silva had a comic role as one of the stepbrothers in the 1960 Jerry Lewis film Cinderfella, a parody of Cinderella with Lewis in the title role, and appeared in starring roles in several filmed episodes of The Outer Limits, a science-fiction anthology television series in the United States.
He sometimes played heavies on TV. For example, he played a hit man in "Better Bargain" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Other TV roles included an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery and the episode The Enemies from season one of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (as General Tau).
An Italian film producer made Silva an offer to star as a hero for a change and he moved his family overseas. Silva's turning-point picture was a spaghetti western, The Hills Run Red, which made him a hot box-office commodity in Spain, Italy, Germany, and France.
Returning to the United States in the 1970s, he co-starred with Frank Sinatra in Contract on Cherry Street, then signed on as Buck Rogers' evil adversary Killer Kane. In the 1980s and 1990s, he appeared as a drug-addicted hitman in Burt Reynolds' Sharky's Machine, the villainous CIA agent Kurt Zagon in Steven Seagal's debut, Above the Law; as a sinister mob hitman in Dick Tracy; as the voice of the supervillain Bane in Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures; and as the sorrowful and doomed crime boss Ray Vargo in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. He also played the 'heavy' in Chuck Norris' movie Code Of Silence. He currently lives in the Los Angeles area.
References
^ DVD commentary for The Return of Mr. Moto, Mr. Moto Collection - Vol. 2, 20th Century Fox, 2007-02-13
^ Note: Reliable sources state Silva is of Puerto Rican descent. But Silva states he is of Spanish-Sicilian heritage and specifically denies any Puerto Rican heritage in the DVD commentary for The Return of Mr. Moto.
What members say |
Filmography
Henry Silva - what members say
review by A customer from GLASGOW
TOP MOVIE !!! 26 October 2005
review by A customer from Sheffield, England
Bite Me! 28 April 2005
Henry Silva - filmography
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Nico - Above The Law - Blu-ray
(1988)
Starring: Steven Seagal, Pam Grier, Sharon Stone
Director: Andrew Davis
Certificate: 
When Chicago cop Nico Toscani (Steven Seagal) discovers that suspects apprehended in a drug bust are allowed to walk, he's not happy. Soon Nico himself is asked to turn in his badge. Although he's now off the force, no way is he out of the action. Seagal makes a smashing screen debut in this tale ..read more »

61%
from 271 members
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Nico - Above The Law
on DVD
(1988)
Starring: Steven Seagal, Pam Grier, Sharon Stone
Director: Andrew Davis
Certificate: 
When Chicago cop Nico Toscani (Steven Seagal) discovers that suspects apprehended in a drug bust are allowed to walk, he's not happy. Soon Nico himself is asked to turn in his badge. Although he's now off the force, no way is he out of the action. Seagal makes a smashing screen debut in this tale ..read more »

62%
from 3,854 members
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Bulletproof
on DVD
(1987)
Starring: Gary Busey, Darlanne Fluegel, Henry Silva
Director: Steve Carver
Certificate: 
A former CIA agent turned Los Angeles cop is entrusted with a delicate task to retrieve a top secret 28-ton super tank, which has fallen into the hands of terrorists. Overcoming incredible odds, he locates the terrorists' base, where a bloody battle is about to take place...

47%
from 111 members
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Code Of Silence
on DVD
(1985)
Starring: Chuck Norris, Henry Silva, Molly Hagan
Director: Andrew Davis
Certificate: 
From the director of THE FUGITIVE, international action star Chuck Norris heads the cast of this all action cops and robbers ride. Two rival gangs are sparring over the drug trade in the Chy-town. During a bloody three-way shootout among the gangs and the police, an officer wrongfully shoots an ..read more »

62%
from 445 members
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Lust In The Dust
(1984)
Starring: Tab Hunter, Divine, Lainie Kazan
Director: Paul Bartel
Certificate: 
An amusing Western, set in a sleepy New Mexico town. The plot revolves around the search for buried gold, which gathers speed when tattoos are found on the bottoms of two females. Together, these tattoos provide a clue to the treasure's location.

58%
from 83 members
Currently unavailable
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Bronx Warriors 2 - Escape from the Bronx
on DVD
(1984)
Starring: Mark Gregory, Henry Silva, Valeria D'Obici
Director: Enzo Castellari
Certificate: 
Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
In a violent near-future, New York is being rebuilt and GC, the company behind the rebuild, want the law-breaking warriors from the Bronx removed using any force necessary. The warriors retaliate by hatching a plan to kidnap the President of GC so that they attack on them will stop.

49%
from 202 members
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Manhunt
on DVD
(1984)
Starring: John Ethan Wayne, Ethan Wayne, Henry Silva
Director: Larry Ludman
Certificate: 
A young man is wrongly sentenced as a horse thief. Having managed to escape, he heads for his accuser and kidnaps him. The chase is on...but fate has a surprising twist in store.

39%
from 40 members
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Chained Heat
(1983)
Starring: Linda Blair, John Vernon, Sybil Danning
Director: Paul Nicholas
Certificate: 
The B-grade genres of sexploitation, blaxploitation, and jailhouse flicks mixed with this grotesque sex- and violence-filled melodrama. Linda Blair stars as Carol Henderson, a naïve and inexperienced teenager who is sentenced to 18 months in a women's prison after accidentally killing a man. Once ..read more »

42%
from 190 members
Currently unavailable
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Sharky's Machine
(1981)
Starring: Burt Reynolds, Rachel Ward, Henry Silva
Director: Burt Reynolds
Certificate: 
Someone, it would appear, has taken over the underworld activities of Atlanta, Georgia - Drugs, call-girls, political pay-offs and murder - and a new kingpin is calling all the shots. Undercover cop Tom Sharky (Burt Reynolds) knows him only as 'The Ace'.
The trouble is that Sharky, once the best, ..read more »

55%
from 46 members
Currently unavailable
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Alligator
on DVD
(1980)
Starring: Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Michael V. Gazzo
Director: Lewis Teague
Certificate: 
A vicious alligator named Ramon, who was flushed into the city sewer as a baby, survives to become a 32-foot-long menace who devours animals and people alike. Ramon's so huge because of the steady diet of dead pets - treated with growth hormones - that he's fed on for 12 years. Now the tremendous ..read more »

58%
from 886 members
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Thirst
on DVD
(1979)
Starring: David Hemmings, Shirley Cameron, Henry Silva
Director: Rod Hardy
Certificate: 
Kate Davis is a successful, independent woman. However, her life is about to change - and not for the better.
A Carton of blood in her fridge marks the dramatic changes ahead. She is kidnapped by a secret society of vampires - the Hyma Brotherhood - who believe she is the direct descendant of their ..read more »

42%
from 168 members
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Almost Human
on DVD
(1974)
Starring: Tomas Milian, Henry Silva, Laura Belli
Director: Umberto Lenzi
Certificate: 
Tomas Milian (DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING) and Henry Silva (THE CRY OF A PROSTITUTE) star in this thrilling Italian crime saga from director Umberto Lenzi (CANNIBAL FEROX). Milian stars as aspiring gangster Giulio Sacchi who, with his motley crue of criminal wannabes, conspire to kidnap the beautiful ..read more »

60%
from 69 members
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The Hills Run Red
on DVD
(1966)
Starring: Thomas Hunter, Henry Silva, Dan Duryea
Director: Carlo Lizzani
Certificate: 
At the end of the Civil War, Confederate soldier Jerry Brewster (Thomas Hunter) is jailed for a heist engineered by his buddy Ken Seagall (Nando Gazzolo), who escapes with the loot and builds quite a fortune for himself. While suffering behind bars, Brewster realizes he was double-crossed... and ..read more »

53%
from 32 members
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The Manchurian Candidate
on DVD
(1962)
Starring: Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury
Director: John Frankenheimer
Certificate: 
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is a complex paranoid political horror story about a brainwashed American platoon and a decorated soldier programmed to assassinate political enemies. The former platoon commander must piece together the clues to discover the killer's identity, his next target, and who is ..read more »

67%
from 9,669 members
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The Tall T
on DVD
(1957)
Starring: Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Maureen O'Sullivan
Director: Budd Boetticher
Certificate: 
Perhaps the grittiest and grimmest of the Randolph Scott-Budd Boetticher collaborations, The Tall T was adapted by Burt Kennedy from the Elmore Leonard short story The Captive. Scott plays a former ranch foreman who, along with newlyweds Maureen O'Sullivan and John Hubbard, is held hostage at a ..read more »

71%
from 28 members
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Buck Rogers In The 25th Century - Series 2
(4 discs)
on DVD
Starring: Gil Gerard, Erin Gray, Tim O'Connor
Director: none
Certificate: 
In 1979, producer Glen A. Larson (Battlestar Galactica, The A-Team) revived the character of Buck Rogers (originally created in 1928) for a television pilot for NBC. The result got a theatrical release, only to appear a year later on television as a prelude to a series starring Gil Gerard as the ..read more »

59%
from 681 members
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Henry Silva facts
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