Sal Mineo

Salvatore Mineo Jr. (January 10, 1939 – February 12, 1976) was an American actor, singer and director. Mineo is best known for his Academy Award-nominated performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Mineo also received a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in Exodus (1960). A 1950s teen idol, Mineo's acting career declined in his adult years. He was murdered in 1976.

Early life

Mineo was born in the Bronx, the son of coffin makers Josephine (née Alvisi) and Salvatore Mineo Sr. He was of Sicilian descent; his father was born in Italy and his mother, of Italian origin, was born in the United States. Mineo was the brother of actress Sarina Mineo and actors Michael and Victor Mineo. He attended the Quintano School for Young Professionals.

Career

Child actor

Mineo's mother enrolled him in dancing and acting school at an early age. He had his first stage appearance in Tennessee Williams' play The Rose Tattoo (1951). He also played the young prince opposite Yul Brynner in the stage musical The King and I. Brynner took the opportunity to help Mineo better himself as an actor.

On May 8, 1954, Mineo portrayed the Page (lip-synching to the voice of mezzo-soprano Carol Jones) in the NBC Opera Theatre's production of Richard Strauss's 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.

As a teenager, Mineo appeared on ABC's musical quiz program Jukebox Jury. Mineo made several television appearances before making his screen debut in the Joseph Pevney film Six Bridges to Cross (1955). He beat out Clint Eastwood for the role. Mineo also successfully auditioned for a part in The Private War of Major Benson (1955), as a cadet colonel opposite Charlton Heston.

Rebel Without a Cause and stardom

Mineo's breakthrough as an actor came in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he played John "Plato" Crawford, a sensitive teenager smitten with main character Jim Stark (played by James Dean). Mineo's performance resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and his popularity quickly developed. Mineo's biographer, Paul Jeffers, recounted that Mineo received thousands of letters from young female fans, was mobbed by them at public appearances, and further wrote: "He dated the most beautiful women in Hollywood and New York City."

In Giant (1956), Mineo played Angel Obregon II, a Mexican boy killed in World War II. Many of his subsequent roles were variations of his role in Rebel Without a Cause, and he was typecast as a troubled teen. In the Disney adventure Tonka (1958), for instance, Mineo starred as a young Sioux named White Bull who traps and domesticates a clear-eyed, spirited wild horse named Tonka that becomes the famous Comanche, the lone survivor of Custer's Last Stand. By the late 1950s, Mineo was a major celebrity. He was sometimes referred to as the "Switchblade Kid", a nickname he earned from his role as a criminal in the movie Crime in the Streets (1956).

In 1957, Mineo made a brief foray into pop music by recording a handful of songs and an album. Two of his singles reached the Top 40 in the United States' Billboard Hot 100. The more popular of the two, "Start Movin' (In My Direction)", reached #9 on Billboard's pop chart. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. He starred as drummer Gene Krupa in the movie The Gene Krupa Story (1959), directed by Don Weis with Susan Kohner, James Darren, and Susan Oliver. He appeared as the celebrity guest challenger on the June 30, 1957, episode of What's My Line?

Mineo made an effort to break his typecasting. In addition to his roles as a Native American brave in Tonka (1956), and a Mexican boy in Giant (1956), he played a Jewish Holocaust survivor in Exodus (1960); for his work in Exodus, he won a Golden Globe Award and received his second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Career shift

By the early 1960s, Mineo was becoming too old to play the type of role that had made him famous, and his rumoured homosexuality led to his being considered inappropriate for leading roles. For example, he auditioned for David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia (1962) but was not hired. Mineo appeared in The Longest Day (1962), in which he played a private killed by a German after the landing in Sainte-Mère-Église. 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."

Mineo was the model for Harold Stevenson's painting The New Adam (1963). Now in the Guggenheim Museum's permanent collection, the painting is considered "one of the great American nudes." Mineo also appeared on the Season 2 episode of The Patty Duke Show: "Patty Meets a Celebrity" (1964).

Mineo's role as a stalker in Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965), which co-starred Juliet Prowse, did not seem to help his career. Although his performance was praised by critics, he found himself typecast again—this time as a deranged criminal. Mineo never entirely escaped this characterization. The high point of this period was his portrayal of Uriah in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Mineo guest-starred in an episode of the TV series Combat! in 1966, playing the role of a GI wanted for murder. He did two more appearances on the same show, including appearing in an installment with Fernando Lamas.

In 1969, Mineo returned to the stage to direct a Los Angeles production of the LGBT-themed play Fortune and Men's Eyes (1967), featuring then unknown Don Johnson as Smitty and himself as Rocky. The production received positive reviews, although its expanded prison rape scene was criticized as excessive and gratuitous. Mineo's last role in a motion picture was a small part in the film Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971); he played the chimpanzee Dr. Milo.

Mineo stage-directed a Gian Carlo Menotti opera entitled The Medium in December 1972 in Detroit. Muriel Costa-Greenspon portrayed the title character, Madame Flora, and Mineo played the mute Toby. In 1975, Mineo appeared as Rachman Habib, the assistant to a murderous consular head of a Middle Eastern country, in the Columbo episode "A Case of Immunity," on NBC-TV. Mineo also appeared in two episodes of Hawaii Five-O, in 1968 and 1975. One of his last roles was a guest spot on the TV series S.W.A.T. (1975), in which he portrayed a cult leader similar to Charles Manson.

By 1976, Mineo's career had begun to turn around. While playing the role of a bisexual burglar in a series of stage performances of the comedy P.S. Your Cat Is Dead in San Francisco, Mineo received substantial publicity from many positive reviews; he moved to Los Angeles along with the play.

Personal life

Mineo met English-born actress Jill Haworth on the set of the film Exodus in 1960, in which they portrayed young lovers. Mineo and Haworth were together on-and-off for many years. They were engaged to be married at one point. According to Mineo biographer Michael Gregg Michaud, Haworth cancelled the engagement after she caught Mineo engaging in sexual relations with another man. The two did remain very close friends until Mineo's death. Mineo expressed disapproval of Haworth's brief relationship with the much older television producer Aaron Spelling. One night, when Mineo found Haworth and Spelling at a private Beverly Hills nightclub, he punched Spelling in the face, yelling, "Do you know how old she is? What are you doing with her at your age?" While some have described Haworth as being nothing but a close friend and a "beard" to Mineo to conceal his same-sex partners, Michaud casts doubt upon this claim; he asserts that Mineo and Haworth's relationship was genuine, that Mineo fell in love with Haworth, and that Mineo regarded her as one of the important people in his life.

In a 1972 interview with Boze Hadleigh, Mineo discussed his bisexuality. At the time of his death, he was in a six-year relationship with male actor Courtney Burr III.

Death

On the night of February 12, 1976, the actor returned home following a rehearsal for the play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. After parking his car in the carport below his West Hollywood apartment, the 37-year-old was stabbed in the heart by a mugger who quickly fled the scene. Police pursued multiple leads but assumed the crime to be the result of some sort of “homosexual motivation.” In March 1979, Lionel Ray Williams was sentenced to 57 years in prison for killing Mineo and for committing 10 robberies in the same area. Although considerable confusion existed as to what witnesses had seen in the darkness the night Mineo was murdered, Williams claimed to have had no idea who Mineo was. Corrections officers later said they had overheard Williams admitting to the stabbing. Williams' wife later confirmed that on the night Mineo died, he had come home with blood on his shirt. He was paroled in the early 1990s.

Mineo was buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

Television work