Reni Santoni

Reni Santoni was born on Apr 21, 1938 in USA. Reni Santoni's big-screen debut came with The Pawnbroker directed by Sidney Lumet in 1964, strarring Junkie Selling Radio (uncredited). Reni Santoni is known for Hudson Street directed by Lee Shallat Chemel, Tony Danza stars as Tony Canetti and Lori Loughlin as Melanie Clifford. The upcoming new movie Reni Santoni plays is Gang Warz which will be released on Oct 01, 2004.

Born Reinaldo Santoni in New York City on April 21, 1938 of French and Spanish heritage, Reni (aka Reni Sands) started his career off in entertainment as a comedy writer. He moved in front of the camera in the early 60s and was performing episodic TV drama ("East Side/West Side," "The Trials of O'Brien," "Hawk") when, out of the blue, director Carl Reiner thought enough of Santoni's talents to cast the young actor, an unknown, in his semi-autobiographical film Enter Laughing (1967).In the make-or-break role of aspiring actor David Kolowitz, Santoni could have hit the jackpot to become a major movie star but unfortunately did not receive stand-out reviews in the still-popular film and never became a name. He played another lead in the Canadian film A Great Big Thing (1968) as a follow-up but nothing came of it. Henceforth, Santoni would be spotted in the supporting capacity in a number of film parts.Santoni offered potent, reliable secondary turns in film playing good guys, bad guys, serious guys and amusing guys alongside such top names as Clint Eastwood in L'Inspecteur Harry (1971), Steve Martin in Les cadavres ne portent pas de costard (1982), which was again directed by Carl Reiner, Sean Penn in Bad Boys: Les Mauvais Garçons (1983) Richard Pryor in Comment claquer un million de dollars par jour? (1985), Sylvester Stallone in Cobra (1986) and Gene Hackman in Opération crépuscule (1989), Howard Stern in Parties intimes (1997), and, more recently, Sandra Bullock in 28 jours en sursis (2000) and Coolio in Gang Warz (2004). In contrast, he also broke into the voiceover business and provided expert characterizations wherever needed. He offered his vocal skills in Eddie Murphy's Dr. Dolittle (1998) and Docteur Dolittle 2 (2001).His steady career employment, however, has been on the small screen. His 70s series work consisted of ably assisting such crime fighters as "Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law" and "Matt Houston. He was a regular on the short-lived TV series Manimal (1983) and played a Sanchez family member on the TV comedy Sanchez of Bel Air (1986). In addition to playing Father Joe DiMaggio on the series Jack Killian, l'homme au micro (1988), he had guest shots on "Scarecrow & Mrs. King," "227," "Hill Street Blues," "Moonlighting," "Miami Vice," "Equal Justice," "Murder, She Wrote" and "Quantum Leap." Decades later Santoni played a recurring role as a judge on the series Murder One (1995) and received great attention for his occasional role as "Poppie" the unsanitary restaurateur on the classic comedy series Seinfeld (1989).Into the millennium, Reni appeared as a guest on such popular TV programs as "According to Jim," "CSI," "Grey's Anatomy" and "Raising the Bar." He made his last appearance on an episode of "Franklin & Bash" in 2012. Reni died of cancer on August 1, 2020.