TV And Film Veteran Joseph Campanella Dies At 93
Actor Joseph Campanella has died at age 93. The prolific character actor passed away at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, according to Variety. Joseph Campanella was born in New York City in 1924.
Campanella had a lengthy television and film career that spanned more than six decades. Best known for his stints on the classic TV shows Mannix and One Day at a Time, Joseph’s IMDB resume lists nearly 200 acting credits dating back to 1952 when he played Joe Turino on The Guiding Light. He began making a name for himself on 1950s television shows like Route 66, The Big Valley, and The Fugitive.
In 1968, Campanella was nominated for a supporting actor Emmy Award for his role as Lew Wickersham on Mannix. In the 1970s, Joseph played Ed Cooper, the ex-husband of Bonnie Franklin’s character, on Norman Lear’s CBS sitcom One Day at a Time. Valerie Bertinelli and Mackenzie Phillips played his teen daughters. By the 1980s, Joseph Campanella landed a steady role on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, playing senator Harper Deveraux, before jumping over to The Bold and the Beautiful in 1996.
Joseph Campanella’s steady stream of work also included guest roles on Ironside, Quincy M.E., The Rockford Files, The F.B.I., Knots Landing, The Colbys, CSI, and Melrose Place, and he also found a niche in voice acting, voicing 20 episodes of the 1990s superhero cartoon Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
TV Vet Joseph Campanella, of #Mannix and #OneDayAtATime, Dead at 93 https://t.co/l6vAItKn5K pic.twitter.com/HSxCQ6ntKC
— TVLine.com (@TVLine) May 17, 2018
Notable film roles included a starring role in the 1972 horror classic Ben (a young Michael Jackson famously sang the title song about a rat) and 1979’s Meteor. Joseph Campanella’s last listed role was in 2009 in the movie Lost Dream.
Joseph Campanella followed in the footsteps of his older brother, Frank Campanella, who was also an actor. In fact, Joseph once said his successful older sibling, who went on to appear in blockbuster films like Death Wish II, The Godfather: Part II, and Pretty Woman, put the acting bug in his ear.
“He always wanted to be an actor and kind of influenced me,” Joseph said, according to the Mirror.
Joseph also revealed that his parents spoke mostly Italian at home when he was growing up in New York City, so he and his brothers, Frank and Phillip, grew up speaking Italian before speaking English.
Joseph Campanella is survived by his wife of 53 years, Jill, as well as their seven sons and eight grandchildren.
You can see Joseph Campanella walking his TV daughter down the aisle on the sitcom, One Day at a Time, in the video below.
