Biography
Character actor Carmen Argenziano began his career in the early 1970s, and made two appearances in the early films of director Jonathan Demme, as a wrestler in the girls-in-prison flick "Caged Heat," and as a supermarket manager in the exploitation picture "Crazy Mama." Argenziano got himself into a true movie classic in 1974 when he played a henchman for Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather, Part II." Around the same time, the actor began to appear in TV dramas such as "Kojak," "Columbo," and "The Rockford Files," which would become Argenziano's bread-and-butter for years to come. In the 1980s, Argenziano's hard-edged face showed up in some of the top shows of the era, including "The A-Team," "Cheers," and "Designing Women," and he returned to the big screen as a D.A. in Jodie Foster's Oscar-winner "The Accused." Starting in 1989, Argenziano had a prominent role on the "21 Jump Street" spin-off "Booker" as Chick Sterling, the corporate bigwig who constantly butts heads with his company's brash but brilliant investigator (Richard Grieco). In its second season, he joined the cast of "Stargate SG-1" as a retired military man who becomes an emissary to aliens. Argenziano continued working steadily in film and on television in small character roles for the next two decades, his highest-profile role coming on "CSI: NY" (CBS 2006-2013), where he appeared on six episodes over three seasons as a police inspector. Carmen Argenziano died in Los Angeles on February 10, 2019. He was 75.
