Anthony LaPaglia

Anthony M. LaPaglia (born 31 January 1959) is an Australian actor. He is known for his role as FBI agent Jack Malone on the American TV series Without a Trace, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama, and for his portrayal of Simon Moon on the TV show Frasier, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. He is also known for his role as Barry "The Blade" Muldanno in The Client. --- LaPaglia was born in Adelaide, South Australia, the son of Maria Johannes (née Brendel), a secretary, and Gedio "Eddie" LaPaglia, an auto mechanic and car dealer. LaPaglia's mother was Dutch, and his Italian father immigrated from Bovalino, Calabria, at the age of eighteen. His younger brother, Jonathan LaPaglia, is also an actor, and his other brother, Michael, is a car wholesaler in Los Angeles. LaPaglia attended Rostrevor College. LaPaglia first began his venture into dramatic art in his late teens, when he enrolled in an acting course at the South Australian Castings Agency (SA Castings) in Adelaide. The two and half year course was to be supplemented with a further three months, which would have included a "boot camp" and a trial listing with SA Castings. After completing one and half years of the course, LaPaglia left Adelaide for Los Angeles. --- LaPaglia's earliest credit was a 1985 part in an episode of the television series Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories. His first feature film was Cold Steel in 1987, followed that same year by the title role of Frank Nitti in the telemovie Nitti: The Enforcer. LaPaglia had a supporting role as a mobster in the minor hit Betsy's Wedding (1990). This was followed by roles in the vampire/Mafia story Innocent Blood (1992), the comedy thriller So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993), the legal thriller The Client (1994), and the comedy Empire Records in 1995. That same year, LaPaglia took over the role of Jimmy Wyler, lead character in the TV series Murder One, during its second and final season. During 1997–98, LaPaglia appeared in a Broadway production of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge with the Roundabout Theatre Company and later received a Tony Award for his portrayal of the protagonist, Eddie Carbone. Before the show opened, LaPaglia was sent a script for the pilot of The Sopranos and met its creator, David Chase, to discuss the role of protagonist Tony Soprano. However, various factors, including his Broadway role, prevented LaPaglia obtaining the monumental role. LaPaglia also played Tito Merelli in Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor on Broadway. "'The Sopranos' thing didn't work out...and of course it did work out perfectly, because the right person ended up with the role. You can't imagine that show without James Gandolfini." LaPaglia did, however, later play (in an uncredited 2002 cameo) an actor in a Sopranos-style TV show-within-a-film, in the comedy movie Analyze That. (In 2007, The Sopranos reciprocated, by featuring LaPaglia's brother Jonathan in a film-within-the-TV show.) Spike Lee cast LaPaglia as a New York police detective in Summer of Sam (1999). During 2000–04, LaPaglia appeared in eight episodes of the sitcom Frasier, including the finale, playing Daphne Moon's brother Simon. The role won him an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series". --- LaPaglia currently lives in Santa Monica, California, USA. He has said that he adopted an American accent to help him get acting work after moving to the US. His current accent is neither distinctly American nor is it Australian, but rather a combination of both. According to an offhand remark by LaPaglia, he has employed an American accent since 1982. LaPaglia's first marriage was to actress Cherie Michan. He is currently married to actress Gia Carides, whom he met at a party; the two starred in the 1994 (Ben Lewin) Australian movie Paperback Romance (a.k.a. Lucky Break) and married in 1998. Their daughter Bridget was born in January 2003.