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Biography
Acting career
Mineo had his first stage appearance in The Rose Tattoo (1950), a play by Tennessee Williams. He also played the young prince opposite Yul Brynner in the stage musical The King And I.
After a few more film and television appearances his breakthrough was Rebel Without A Cause (1955) in which he gave an impressive performance as John "Plato" Crawford, the sensitive teenager smitten with James Dean's Jim Stark. His biographer Paul Jeffers recounted that Mineo received thousands of fan letters from young female admirers, was mobbed by them at public appearances and further wrote, "He dated the most beautiful women in Hollywood and New York." Mineo was later reunited with Dean in Giant, although only in a few scenes.
Many of his subsequent roles were variations of his role in Rebel Without a Cause and he often played juvenile delinquents. By the late 1950s he was a major celebrity, sometimes referred to as the "Switchblade Kid."
In 1957, Mineo made a brief foray into music by recording a handful of songs and an album. Two of his singles reached the Top 40 pop charts.
Sal Mineo and David Opatoshu from the movie Exodus.
Meanwhile, Mineo made an effort to break his typecasting. His acting ability and exotic good looks earned him roles as a Native American boy in Tonka and as a Jewish emigrant in Otto Preminger's Exodus for which he received another Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor (and reportedly was bitterly disappointed when he didn't win.)
By the early 1960s he was getting too old to play the types that had made him famous and for a variety of reasons wasn't considered appropriate for leading roles. He auditioned for David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia but wasn't hired. Mineo was baffled by his sudden loss of popularity, later saying "One minute it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle, the next, no one wanted me."
His role as a stalker in Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1964) didn't seem to help. Although his performance was praised by critics, he found himself typecast anew, now as a deranged criminal. He returned to the stage to produce the gay-themed Fortune and Men's Eyes, starring Don Johnson of later Miami Vice fame. Although the play got positive reviews in Los Angeles, it was panned during a run in New York and its expanded prison rape scene was criticized as excessive and prurient. A string of failed projects and flops followed.
Murder
By 1976 Mineo's career seemed to be turning around again. Playing the role of a gay burglar in a San Francisco run of the stage comedy P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, he received substantial publicity from many positive reviews and moved on to Los Angeles with the play. Arriving home after a rehearsal on February 12, 1976 Mineo was stabbed to death in the alley behind a West Hollywood apartment building. He was 37.
A career criminal named Lionel Ray Williams was later sentenced to life in prison for killing Mineo. Although there was considerable confusion relating to what witnesses had seen in the darkness the night Mineo was murdered, Williams was reported to have frequently boasted of the crime, which appears to have been a botched mugging. Williams was paroled in 1990 after serving 12 years but was jailed numerous times thereafter for parole violations.
Mineo is interred in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York. Although Mineo has been dead for almost 30 years, Joseph Trotti, a distant relative and remarkable double for Mineo can still be seen visiting his gravesite.
Quote
"No one ever said movies are for developing your range. Hardly anyone gets that opportunity. Which is why I think the stage is so good. It's less bread, but you can play different types, and you can initiate your own projects."
References
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al : Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005.
Gilmore, John : Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip. Amok Books, 1998.
Jeffers, H. Paul : Sal Mineo: His Life, Murder, and Mystery. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2000.
Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Harrington Park Press, 1994,
