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1918—1996 · six entirely different parts

Vito Scotti

The man of a thousand faces — that was Vito Scotti’s reputation for vanishing into a part. In Columbo he turns up six times, and you do not always recognise him: a maître d’ in Any Old Port in a Storm, a man at the mission in Negative Reaction, and four more people who have nothing in common.

Parts in Columbo

Six parts

A maître d’ in Any Old Port in a Storm, Chadwick in Candidate for Crime, Mr. Grindell in Swan Song, Thomas Dolan in Negative Reaction, Salvatore De Fonte in Identity Crisis and Vito in Murder, a Self Portrait. The most memorable is Dolan, the man at the mission the lieutenant visits in Negative Reaction.

Scotti worked on Columbo both in the seventies and after the series returned in 1989.

Beyond Columbo

Born Vito Giusto Scozzari in San Francisco to an Italian family, he spent part of his childhood in Naples. He started out as a nightclub magician and mime. Over fifty years he played more than two hundred parts, most of them “ethnic”: a Mexican bandit, a Russian doctor, a Japanese sailor, an Indian travel agent. On television: The Twilight Zone, The Addams Family, Batman, The Andy Griffith Show.

Facts

• Six Columbo parts between 1973 and 1989, no two alike.
• Worked on the series both before the break and after its 1989 return.
• More than two hundred film and television roles.
• Started out as a magician and mime.

Questions

More familiar faces

Cast data from TMDB. Biographical details from open reference sources.