Sal Mineo

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Sal Mineo

Born Salvatore Mineo, Jr.
January 10, 1939(1939-01-10)
The Bronx, New York
Died February 12, 1976 (aged 37)
West Hollywood, California
Other name(s) The Switchblade Kid, Jr.
www.SalMineo.com
Official website

Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. (January 10, 1939 – February 12, 1976) was a Golden Globe-winning American film and theatre actor, best known for his Academy Award-nominated performance opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause.

Mineo, born in The Bronx, the son of a Sicilian coffin maker, was enrolled by his mother in dancing and acting school at an early age.

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[edit] Acting career

Mineo had his first stage appearance in The Rose Tattoo (1950), a play by Tennessee Williams. He also played the young prince opposite Yul Brynner in the stage musical The King and I.

After a few more film and television appearances his breakthrough was Rebel Without A Cause in which he played John "Plato" Crawford, the sensitive teenager smitten with Jim Stark (played by James Dean). Mineo's biographer Paul Jeffers recounted that Mineo received thousands of fan letters from young female admirers, was mobbed by them at public appearances and further wrote, "He dated the most beautiful women in Hollywood and New York."

Mineo played a Mexican boy in Giant (1956), but many of his subsequent roles were variations of his role in Rebel Without a Cause, and he often played juvenile delinquents. In the Disney adventure Tonka, for instance, Mineo starred as a young Sioux named White Bull who traps and domesticates a clear-eyed, spirited wild horse named "Tonka" who becomes the famous horse Comanche.

In his book, Multiculturalism And The Mouse: Race and Sex in Disney Entertainment (2006), Douglas Brode states that the very casting of Mineo as White Bull again "ensured a homosexual subtext". By the late 1950s the actor was a major celebrity, sometimes referred to as the "Switchblade Kid".

Publicity still from The Gene Krupa Story.
Publicity still from The Gene Krupa Story.

In 1957, Mineo made a brief foray into music by recording a handful of songs and an album. Two of his singles reached the Top 40 pop charts. He starred as drummer Gene Krupa in the movie The Gene Krupa Story, co-starring Susan Kohner, James Darren, and Susan Oliver, and directed by Don Weis.

Meanwhile, Mineo made an effort to break his typecasting. His acting ability and exotic good looks earned him not only roles as a Native American boy in Tonka, but also as a Jewish emigrant in Otto Preminger's Exodus for which he received another Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor.

By the early 1960s, he was getting too old to play the types that had made him famous and for a variety of reasons was not considered appropriate for leading roles. He auditioned for David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia but was not hired. Mineo was baffled by his sudden loss of popularity, later saying "One minute it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle, the next, no one wanted me."

His role as a stalker in Who Killed Teddy Bear?, co-starring Juliet Prowse, did not seem to help. Although his performance was praised by critics, he found himself typecast anew, now as a deranged criminal. (He never entirely escaped this; one of his last roles was a guest spot on the 1975 TV series S.W.A.T. playing a Charles Manson-like cult leader.) He returned to the stage to produce the 1971 gay-themed Fortune and Men's Eyes (which starred Don Johnson). The play got positive reviews in Los Angeles, but was panned during a run in New York and its expanded prison rape scene was criticized as excessive and gratuitous. A string of failed projects and flops followed. A small role in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) as chimpanzee Dr. Milo turned out to be Mineo's last movie appearance.

[edit] Murder

By 1976 Mineo's career seemed to be turning around again. Playing the role of a gay burglar in a San Francisco run of the stage comedy P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, he received substantial publicity from many positive reviews and moved on to Los Angeles with the play. Arriving home after a rehearsal on February 12, 1976, Mineo was stabbed to death in the alley behind a West Hollywood apartment building. He was 37 years old. He was stabbed just once, not repeatedly as first reported, but the blade struck his heart, leading to immediate and massive internal bleeding.[citation needed] Mineo was interred in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.

According to Warren Johansson and William A. Percy's Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence, he was murdered under circumstances that suggested "a homosexual motive". Investigators reportedly found gay pornography in his home. Mineo identified himself as bisexual in a 1972 interview, published after his death, but his biography notes that he dated men exclusively in the last years of his life.

The footstone of Sal Mineo in Gate of Heaven Cemetery
The footstone of Sal Mineo in Gate of Heaven Cemetery

[edit] Arrest in Mineo's killing

A career criminal named Lionel Ray Williams was later sentenced to life in prison for killing Mineo.[citation needed] Although there was considerable confusion relating to what witnesses had seen in the darkness the night Mineo was murdered, Williams was reported to have boasted of the crime, which turned out to be a botched mugging. Williams claimed he had no idea who Mineo was. Williams was paroled in 1990, after serving 12 years, but was jailed numerous times afterwards for parole violations.[citation needed]

[edit] At the opera

A little-known facet of Mineo's career was his involvement with opera. On May 8, 1954, he portrayed the Page (lip-synching to the voice of mezzo-soprano Carol Jones) in the NBC Opera Theatre's production of Richard Strauss' Salome (in English translation), set to Oscar Wilde's play. Elaine Malbin performed the title role, and Peter Herman Adler conducted Kirk Browning's production.

In December 1972, Mineo stage directed Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium, in Detroit. Muriel Costa-Greenspon portrayed the title character, Madame Flora, and Mineo himself played the mute Toby.

[edit] Art

Sal Mineo was the model for the painting The New Adam. The painting is currently part of Guggenheim Museum's permanent collection.

[edit] Quote

“ No one ever said movies are for developing your range. Hardly anyone gets that opportunity. Which is why I think the stage is so good. It's less bread, but you can play different types, and you can initiate your own projects. ”

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Awards
Preceded by
Stephen Boyd
for Ben-Hur		 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
1961
for Exodus		 Succeeded by
George Chakiris
for West Side Story