In addition to film and theater, Lo Bianco appeared as a guest-star on numerous television series throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including appearances on Police Story (1974–1976), Franco Zeffirelli's miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977), and Marco Polo (1982).
In 1984, he appeared in a stage production of Hizzoner!, playing New York politician Fiorello LaGuardia, for which he won a New York Emmy Award. The one-man play was subsequently staged on Broadway in 1989, and Lo Bianco has gone on to perform several other Off-Broadway iterations of it, including LaGuardia (2008) and The Little Flower (2012–2015).
Early life
The son of Sicilian immigrants, Anthony LoBianco was born October 19, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a housewife mother and a taxi driver father.[1][2] He attended the William E. Grady CTE High School, a vocational school in Brooklyn.[3] There, he had a teacher who encouraged him to try out for plays, which is when he began to develop an interest in acting.[3] After graduating high school, he attended the Dramatic Workshop, studying acting and theater production.[1]
Career
Lo Bianco was a Golden Glovesboxer and also founded the Triangle Theatre in 1963, serving as its artistic director for six years and collaborating with lighting designer Jules Fisher, playwright Jason Miller and actor Roy Scheider.[4] He performed as an understudy in a 1964 Broadway production of Incident at Vichy, and the following year had a supporting role in a Broadway production of Tartuffe.[5] From late 1965 through the spring of 1966, he starred on Broadway as Fray Marcos de Nizza in The Royal Hunt of the Sun.[5]
He made his film debut in The Sex Perils of Paulette (1965) before appearing as a murderer in the semi-biographical crime film The Honeymoon Killers (1970). He subsequently appeared as Salvatore Boca in William Friedkin's critically acclaimed action film The French Connection (1971),[4] and later starred as a police officer investigating a series of murders in Larry Cohen's horror film God Told Me To (1976). From 1974–76, he played a lead role in six episodes of Joseph Wambaugh's anthology television series Police Story in the mid-1970s, four times alongside Don Meredith. He also appeared in several Italian films, including the Lee Van Cleef-starring crime comedy Mean Frank and Crazy Tony (1973).
In 1975, Lo Bianco won an Obie award for his off-Broadway performance as Duke Bronkowski in the baseball-themed play Yanks-3, Detroit-0, Top of the Seventh.[4][6] In 1983, Lo Bianco was nominated for a Tony for his portrayal of Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge.[4] He also won the 1983 Outer Critics Circle Award for this performance. In 1984, he had a supporting role in the action comedy City Heat.[4]
Lo Bianco first portrayed the larger-than-life mayor of New York City Fiorello H. La Guardia (mayor from 1933 to 1945) in the one-man show Hizzoner!, written in 1984 by Paul Shyre. Lo Bianco won a local Daytime Emmy Award for the WNET Public Television version of the play, which was filmed at the Empire State Institute for the Performing Arts in Albany.[7] The play was subsequently staged on Broadway in 1989, where it ran for 12 performances.[5][8] Lo Bianco appeared in several independent films in the 1990s: in 1995 as Jimmy Jacobs in the HBO biographical film Tyson, in 1996 as Briggs in Sworn to Justice with Cynthia Rothrock. He had a minor role in Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone. [4]
Lo Bianco continued his work on the life of LaGuardia in a revised[8] revival of the play in 2008, titled LaGuardia.[9] His third incantation of the mayor's life had a limited run off-Broadway in October 2012, titled The Little Flower.[9] Lo Bianco purchased the rights to the play from Shyre's estate and has rewritten it a few times. He views the play as "a vehicle to express my concerns for the public and political mess that we're in, which we continue to be in, I think, and try to relate answers to failure." He performed it in Moscow in 1991 shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, and in 2015 he was scheduled to perform it in Italy.[8] The show was staged at LaGuardia Community College in May 2015.[10]
A New York Times profile in 2015 reported that Lo Bianco was at work on a one-man show playing himself and a film script about his early life.[8]
Personal life
Lo Bianco was previously the national spokesperson for the Order Sons of Italy in America.[11] His humanitarian efforts have earned multiple awards, including Man of the Year for Outstanding Contributions to the Italian-American Community from the Police Society of New Jersey; a Man of the Year Award from the State of New Jersey Senate; a Lifetime Entertainment Award from the Columbus Day Parade Committee; the 1997 Golden Lion Award; Humanitarian Award of the Boys' Town of Italy.[12]
Lo Bianco was married from 1964 until 1984 to Dora Landey. They had three daughters. He was married to Elizabeth Fitzpatrick from 2002 until 2008. He married his current wife, Alyse Best Muldoon, in June 2015.
