Joe Spano

Boyish-looking actor Joe Spano, best known for his sympathetic detective role on the grim 1980's police series Hill Street Blues (1981), was born Joseph Peter Spano on July 7, 1946, in San Francisco, the son of a doctor. A Bishop Riordan High School and University of California-Berkeley graduate, his original intention was to be a pre-med major, but that dissipated with the growing interest of acting. Joe gained experience working with a San Francisco improv group called The Wing.

While at college he made his debut as Paris in a production of "Romeo and Juliet" in 1967 and the very next year helped founded the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, appearing in its very first first production of "Woyzek. " He stayed with the company for 10 years and appeared in many of its plays including "Hamlet" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

"In the 1970's, Joe decided to give Hollywood a try. Playing a seductive vampire in the cult musical "Dracula: A Musical Nightmare" in a small LA theatre, he pursued film and TV at the same time.

In between small parts on TV ("Streets of San Francisco," "Lou Grant," "Trapper John"), he earned bit roles as hoodlums and other assorted urban troublemaker types in such films as American Graffiti (1973) and The Enforcer (1976).

He was also given the romantic cub reporter lead in the obscure supernatural horror movie Warlock Moon (1973) and, later, co-starred in the equally obscure low-budget political drama Northern Lights (1978).

Original voice of Pasqually the Chief for the Chuck E Cheese's animatronic show from 1977 to 1983.

After his Emmy-nominated success playing junior officer Harry Goldblume on Hill Street Blues (1981), Joe appeared here, there and everywhere but to somewhat less notoriety.

He also appeared in assorted TV movies and mini-series including Disaster at Silo 7 (1988), Blind Faith (1990), The Summer My Father Grew Up (1991), the starring role in The Flood: Who Will Save Our Children? (1993), and From the Earth to the Moon (1998), not to mention guest parts on "Valerie," "Civil Wars," "Reasonable Doubts," "The X Files," "Profiler," "JAG," Nash Bridges" and "Touched by an Angel.

Was considered for the role of Capt. Donald Cragen on Law & Order (1990).

"Joe made his Broadway bow in 1992 as Walter in a revival of Arthur Miller's "The Price" starring Eli Wallach. West coast stage credits have included "Speed-the-Plow" and "American Buffalo," the latter earning him a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award.

Into the millennium, Joe returned to another recurring detective role with the hit police series NYPD Blue (1993).

He managed to cop recurring roles in several other series: Amazing Grace (1995), again as a detective, Murder One (1995), and as a doctor in Mercy Point (1998).

In films, Spano worked alongside Tom Hanks in Apollo 13 (1995) and Richard Gere and Edward Norton in Primal Fear (1996), among others.

Returned to Berkeley Repertory Theatre after 25 years to co-star in "The Guys" opposite "NYPD Blue" star Sharon Lawrence, in 2003.