Henry Silva Overview:

Character actor, Henry Silva, was born on Sep 15, 1928 in Brooklyn, NY. As of December 2023, Henry Silva was 95 years old.

MINI BIO:

Dark-haired American actor (of Puerto Rican parentage) who often plays emotionless killers. If you saw Silva coming down a street towards you, the odds are that you would cross to the other side. An attempt to install him in leading roles in the early sixties was not successful and, although he has continued with bad guys, they have often been too silly for him to make an impact. Much in Italy from the mid-sixties, he later made many obscure action films of the "straight to video" variety.

(Source: available at Amazon Quinlan's Film Character Actors: an Illustrated Directory).

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Henry Silva Quotes:

Chink: I had me a quiet woman once. Outside she was as calm as Sunday. But inside, wild as mountain scenery.


Peggy Carter: Your father was a preacher?
Rennie: Kind of a phony evangelist. I tell ya, he was about the meanest man I've ever met in my life. He just naturally liked to beat up on anything that was smaller than him. And of course, he could always say he was beating the fear of God into ya.
Peggy Carter: Well, where is he now?
Rennie: Well, I, ah, well I hope I know where he is. He was the first man I ever killed.


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Henry Silva Facts
Of Sicilian and Spanish descent.

The 1930 census lists him (as "Harry") living with his divorced mother in Manhattan. This census entry gives both his parents' birth places as "Porto Rico".

Provides an audio commentary for the DVD version of The Return of Mr. Moto (1965) (part of the special features in Peter Lorre's Mr. Moto DVD collection). While making minimal comments about that movie itself, he does address the issue of his heritage. Wryly noting he had been assumed to be everything, including Russian, he specifically denied being of Puerto Rican heritage, which is the most commonly reported. He states that his mother was from Northern Spain and that his father was Italian. He was born in Brooklyn but left there when he was only five months old. His father left his mother when Silva was only three months old. Silva says that he was only eight years old when he decided to become an actor, although he didn't do anything about it until his teens. His inspiration was primarily his mother. Apparently she was a story-teller and, upon returning from shopping, would fill their apartment with vivid characterizations of the grocer, baker etc. Silva concludes by noting that he thinks of his mother every day.

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