Actor Dennis Farina, a real-life Chicago police officer who went on to play a detective on NBC’s Law & Order, has died at 69. According to his publicist, Lori De Waal, Farina died Monday morning in a Scottsdale, Ariz., hospital after suffering a blood clot in his lung.
“I was stunned and saddened to hear about Dennis’ unexpected passing this morning,” Law & Order creator Dick Wolf said in a statement on Monday. “The Law & Order family extends sympathy and condolences to his family. He was a great guy.”
The mustachioed Farina was accustomed to playing characters on either side of the law, such Lt. Mike Torello on TV’s Crime Story as well as mobsters like Jimmy Serrano in 1998’s Midnight Run and Albert Lombard on Miami Vice. He had a fruitful partnership with that show’s creator, Michael Mann, having also starred in his films Thief and Manhunter.
Farina is survived by partner Marianne Cahill and three sons from his marriage to Patricia. They were married 10 years before they divorced in 1980.
