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Eduardo Ciannelli, sometimes credited as Edward Ciannelli, (30 August 1889 - 8 October 1969), was an Italian baritone and character actor with a long career in American films, mostly playing gangsters and criminals. Ciannelli was born on the island of Ischia, in the Gulf of Naples, the son of a doctor who owned a health spa. He studied surgery at the University of Naples, and worked briefly as a doctor, but his love of grand opera and the dramatic stage won out and he became a successful baritone, singing at La Scala and touring Europe. He went to America after the end of World War I and... MORE

Eduardo Ciannelli, sometimes credited as Edward Ciannelli, (30 August 1889 - 8 October 1969), was an Italian baritone and character actor with a long career in American films, mostly playing gangsters and criminals. Ciannelli was born on the island of Ischia, in the Gulf of Naples, the son of a doctor who owned a health spa. He studied surgery at the University of Naples, and worked briefly as a doctor, but his love of grand opera and the dramatic stage won out and he became a successful baritone, singing at La Scala and touring Europe. He went to America after the end of World War I and appeared on Broadway in Oscar Hammerstein II's first musical Always You and later in Rose-Marie. He appeared in Theatre Guild productions in the late 1920s, co-starring with the Lunts (Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne), and Katharine Cornell. During that period, he appeared in Uncle Vanya, The Inspector General, The Front Page. In 1935, he played Trock Estrella in Maxwell Anderson's Winterset on Broadway and repeated his performance in the film version (1936). He played Cauchon in Shaw's Saint Joan in 1936, after which he left Broadway permanently, except for one notable occasion when he returned to LESS