Dennis Farina on Law & Order Tonight
By Margaret Lyons in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 22, 2004 7:03PM
Chicago actor Dennis Farina hits the airwaves tonight as Detective Joe Fontana on Law & Order, and even his character is a Chicago native. Hm. Farina was a Chicago police officer for almost 20 years before turning to such prestigious art as Miami Vice, which L&O creator/god Dick Wolf also worked on. It's important to do what you really want to do, so take comfort in the fact that you can piss away 20 years doing whatever before you really need to zoom in on your actual career. Phew.
In this blow job of an article, the Trib says that "If there is one actor working today who epitomizes Chicago, it is Farina, with that distinctive mug and no-baloney talk." Come on, that's just a fancy way of saying "people in Chicago are busted and have limited vocabularies." Thanks a lot, guys. Nothing against Dennis Farina or anything, but jeeze louise, is he really the epitome of Chicago?
When Farina started working as an actor, he was still on the beat as a cop, too, so he was endlessly harassed. According to Chuck Adamson, Farina's former supervisor at the CPD,
I think [Farina] had a tough time in the police department with the guys he was working with. He was doing theater or making movies and he couldn't do a regular schedule, so Sam [Cirone, chief of detectives] made a secretary out of him. Desk work. The guys started calling him Margaret and asking him to make coffee for them.
Yeah, Margaret's a hilarious name. What a bunch of wacky pranksters over at the police department.
Detective Fontana, who replaces Detective Briscoe as the wise/wizened half of the detective duo, is a shady character who drives a Corvette and pays for a martini with "'a wad of cash that would choke a horse.'" Yup, sounds like the cops we know. Were excited to Mr. Chicagopants Himself on Law & Order tonight, although what we'd really like to see is a freaking crime show set here in the Windy City.