Joe Grifasi
Joseph G. "Joe" Grifasi (born June 14, 1944) is an American character actor of film, stage and television. Born in Buffalo, New York, Grifasi joined the U.S. Army prior to studying acting. He has appeared in more than 50 feature films including Presumed Innocent, The Deer Hunter, Big Business, Beaches, Auto Focus, Matewan, Naked Gun, Dark Matter, Natural Born Killers, Chances Are, Changing Lanes, One Fine Day, F/X, Benny & Joon, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Brewster’s Millions, Batman Forever, The Flamingo Kid, Ironweed, and Splash. His television credits include The Bronx is Burning (as Yogi Berra), 61* (as Phil Rizzuto), Law & Order, ER, LA Law, Chicago Hope, Hill Street Blues, SCTV, Roseanne, and The Practice. Grifasi’s Broadway credits include Dinner at Eight, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, A Memory of Two Mondays, Boy Meets Girl, The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The 1940’s Radio Hour and Happy End. His off-Broadway credits include Conversations in Tusculum, The Boys Next Door (Drama Desk Nomination), Once Around the City, Golden Boy, Filumena and Says I, Says He.
He has been married to jazz soprano saxophonist and composer Jane Ira Bloom, whom he met while studying at the Yale School of Drama, since 1974.
| Known For | Acting |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 0.9726 |
| Birthday | 1944-06-14 |
| Place of Birth | Buffalo - New York - USA |
| Also Known As | Joseph G. Grifasi, Joseph Grifasi , |
1991
City of Hope
6.769/39
This gritty inner-city film follows various people living in a troubled New Jersey setting, most notably Nick Rinaldi, a disillusioned contractor who...
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City of Hope
2006
A Crime
5.548/42
Vincent's life is on hold until he finds his wife's killer. Alice, his neighbor, is convinced she can make him happy. She decides to invent a culprit,...
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A Crime
1995
Batman Forever
5.454/5554
Batman faces off against two foes: the schizophrenic, horribly scarred former District Attorney Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, and the Riddler, a disgrunt...
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Batman Forever
1989
The Feud
5.2/5
All Dolph Beeler wanted was a can of paint remover when he went to Bud Bullard's hardware store in Millville. But a simple misunderstandling between t...
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The Feud
1989
Chances Are
6.6/279
Louie Jeffries is happily married to Corinne. On their first anniversary, Louie is killed crossing the road. Louie is reincarnated as Alex Finch, and...
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Chances Are
1983
Will There Really Be a Morning?
7/3
This is the story of actress Frances Farmer, her struggles with mental illness and involuntary confinement in an insane asylum.
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Will There Really Be a Morning?
1993
Benny & Joon
7.025/818
A mentally ill young woman finds her love in an eccentric man who models himself after Buster Keaton.
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Benny & Joon
1985
Brewster's Millions
6.601/654
Monty Brewster, an aging minor-league baseball player, stands to inherit $300 million if he can successfully spend $30 million in 30 days without anyt...
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Brewster's Millions
1990
Presumed Innocent
6.807/802
Rusty Sabich is a deputy prosecutor engaged in an obsessive affair with a coworker who is murdered. Soon after, he's accused of the crime. And his fig...
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Presumed Innocent
1996
One Fine Day
6.471/719
Melanie Parker, an architect and mother of Sammy, and Jack Taylor, a newspaper columnist and father of Maggie, are both divorced. They meet one mornin...
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One Fine Day
1978
The Deer Hunter
7.974/4210
Three steelworkers enlist in the army and are sent to Vietnam, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter dur...
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The Deer Hunter
1994
The Hudsucker Proxy
7.07/1178
A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam.
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The Hudsucker Proxy
1982
Still of the Night
5.697/160
When one of his patients is found murdered, psychiatrist Dr. Sam Rice is visited by the investigating officer but refuses to give up any information....
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Still of the Night
1984
The Pope of Greenwich Village
6.387/151
Charlie and his troublesome cousin Paulie decide to steal $150000 in order to back a "sure thing" race horse that Paulie has inside information on. Th...
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The Pope of Greenwich Village
1995
Two Bits
5.709/65
It's a hot summer day in 1933 in South Philly, where 12-year old Gennaro lives with his widowed mom and his ailing grandpa, who sits outside holding t...
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Two Bits
1982
The Elephant Man
5.889/9
A taped version of the stage play about a hideously deformed 19th-century London man and how he managed to triumph over his disease.
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The Elephant Man
2006
Lewis Black: Red, White & Screwed
6.6/36
Lewis Black stars in his second HBO solo special, an all-new hour of frenetic, take-no-prisoners stand-up comedy, taped before a live audience at the...
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Lewis Black: Red, White & Screwed
2023
Endgame
0/0
Endgame tells the story of Hamm, who is reduced to living in one room, in which he sits blind and chair-bound. His only escape from his solitary world...
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Endgame
2000
The Other Me
5.571/85
When Will Browning is threatened with military summer school if he doesn't get better grades, he decides to do a science project that will definitely...
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The Other Me
1981
Honky Tonk Freeway
5.28/25
Ticlaw, a small town in Florida, has only one attraction: a safari park. The government constructs a freeway that passes near Ticlaw, but decides not...
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Honky Tonk Freeway
1980
Hide in Plain Sight
5.441/17
True story of a man in search of his children after his ex-wife enters the Witness Protection Program.
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Hide in Plain Sight
2010
The Front
5.6/18
A detective uncovers a sinister conspiracy when he is sent to research a disintegrating neighborhood for a public relations campaign.
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The Front
1988
The Appointments of Dennis Jennings
6.676/17
Dennis Jennings is an introverted daydreamer, sleepwalking through life. He is a professional waiter and has an equally-dull girlfriend, Emma. In an a...
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The Appointments of Dennis Jennings
1998
The Deal
5.667/3
A big-idea farce about big, badass businessmen.
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The Deal
2022
The Dreams of Rene Sendam
1/2
Rene Sendam is deeply troubled. A lonely graduate student studying poetry and an often alienating eccentric, Rene leads a fantasy life built on delusi...
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The Dreams of Rene Sendam
2020
Radium Girls
6.711/45
Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
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Radium Girls
1984
The Flamingo Kid
5.989/89
Brooklyn teenager Jeffrey Willis, thoroughly unhappy with his modest homestead, embraces the other-world aspects of his summer job at the posh Flaming...
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The Flamingo Kid
1979
Something Short of Paradise
3.75/4
A young couple in New York are having problems with their relationship.
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Something Short of Paradise
2010
The Last New Yorker
7.333/3
Lifelong friends Lenny Sugarman and Ruben Liebner , both in their 70s, both dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers, barely recognize the Manhattan of their yout...
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The Last New Yorker
2001
Queenie in Love
6.333/9
A quirky, romantic New York comedy about the pursuit of love, life and the right to be yourself.
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Queenie in Love
1987
Matewan
7.401/131
Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Keneh...
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Matewan
1978
On the Yard
6/7
Chilly is "top con" on the yard, a title that gives him absolute power. Power to make the rules. Power to kill. When a young con confronts Chilly's po...
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On the Yard
1984
Splash
6.258/1475
A successful businessman falls in love with the girl of his dreams. There's one big complication though; he's fallen hook, line and sinker for a merma...
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Splash
2000
Looking for an Echo
3.75/4
The lead singer of an oldies group reminisces about the good ol' days and a potential comeback.
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Looking for an Echo
1988
Big Business
6.369/298
In the 1940s in the small town of Jupiter Hollow, two sets of identical twins are born in the same hospital on the same night. One set to a poor local...
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Big Business
1988
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
7.3/4460
When the bumbling Lieutenant Frank Drebin investigates events following the shooting of his partner, he stumbles upon an attempt to assassinate Queen...
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The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
1986
F/X
6.566/494
A movies special effects man is hired by a government agency to help stage the assassination of a well known gangster. When the agency double cross hi...
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F/X
1995
Heavy
6.7/89
Victor is a cook who works in a greasy roadside restaurant owned by his mother, Dolly. It's just the two of them, a waitress named Delores, and a heav...
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Heavy
1994
Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult
6.5/2494
Frank Drebin is persuaded out of retirement to go undercover in a state prison. There he has to find out what top terrorist, Rocco, has planned for wh...
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Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult
2004
A Jersey Tale
7/1
Jersey City teen Ray Ray Morales is wasting time in a low paying job until a local loan shark offers him a job — making sure that Ray Ray's friend, an...
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A Jersey Tale
1995
Money Train
5.86/859
When a vengeful New York transit cop decides to steal a trainload of subway fares, his foster brother—a fellow cop—tries to protect him.
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Money Train
2016
The American Side
4.7/45
Following a mysterious suicide at Niagara Falls, a low-rent detective unravels a conspiracy to build a revolutionary invention by enigmatic scientist,...
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The American Side
2014
A Midsummer Night's Dream
6.4/11
A recording of Julie Taymor's New York stage production of William Shakespeare's comedy.
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
1996
Shadow of a Doubt
6.5/2
Charlie Sloan is an alcoholic defence lawyer drawn back into the courtroom by Robin Harwell, a woman he once loved who wants him to defend her stepdau...
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Shadow of a Doubt
1989
Kojak: Ariana
7.5/2
One of Kojak's old enemies uses Ariana, a young Greek girl, as bait to trap the legendary New York detective. Meanwhile, Kojak finds himself a brash y...
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Kojak: Ariana
1992
Primary Motive
7/3
In this political thriller, a gubernatorial candidate's idealistic press secretary discovers that the opposing political candidate has feathered the n...
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Primary Motive
2004
13 Going on 30
6.77/5509
After total humiliation at her thirteenth birthday party, Jenna Rink wants to just hide until she's thirty. Thanks to some magic wishing dust, Jenna's...
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13 Going on 30
1994
Natural Born Killers
7.054/3764
Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
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Natural Born Killers
2016
Baked in Brooklyn
5.2/114
A recent college graduate decides to sell marijuana on the streets of Manhattan after losing his job at a consulting firm. He soon meets the girl of h...
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Baked in Brooklyn
1999
Switching Goals
5.879/215
Twin sisters Emma and Sam come up with a scheme to switch places so each can play in the soccer team they prefer.
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Switching Goals
1999
The Out-of-Towners
5.798/253
The adventures of married couple Henry and Nancy Clark, vexed by misfortune while in New York City for Henry's job interview.
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The Out-of-Towners
1981
The Gentleman Bandit
5.667/6
Based on the real-life ordeal of Baltimore priest Bernard Pagano, who was accused of several armed robberies in the late Seventies.
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The Gentleman Bandit
1987
Moonstruck
6.852/1087
37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, ev...
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Moonstruck
1989
Perfect Witness
7.2/5
An innocent man is thrust into a political power struggle in this drama. After witnessing a mob killing, New York restaurant owner Sam Paxton (Aidan Q...
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Perfect Witness
1977
Secret Service
9/1
Set in Richmond, Virginia in October 1864, tells the story of a Union spy working to seize control of the telegraph office.
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Secret Service
1993
Household Saints
6.714/14
A chronicle of three generations of Italian-American women struggling to get by in post-World War II New York’s Little Italy.
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Household Saints
2001
61*
6.969/146
In 1961, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle played for the New York Yankees. One, Mantle, was universally loved, while the other, Maris, was universally ha...
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61*
1997
Sunday
5/12
Mistaking a homeless man for a famous director, a British actress seeks career help from him.
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Sunday
2005
Slow Burn
5.36/89
A district attorney is involved in a 24-hour showdown with a gang leader and is, at the same time, being manipulated by an attractive assistant distri...
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Slow Burn
1985
Bad Medicine
5.167/39
Jeff Marx wants to study medicine and become a physician. However, his grades are far from enough to get him into an American medical school. But then...
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Bad Medicine
1992
Citizen Cohn
6.25/26
As lawyer and power broker Roy Cohn lies dying of AIDS in a private hospital room, ghosts from his past visit him as he reflects on his life and loves...
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Citizen Cohn
1993
Taking the Heat
5/6
When Michael Norell witnesses a murder, he doesn't want to testify but he is forced to by the police. A cop is ordered to bring him to the court, but...
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Taking the Heat
2002
Auto Focus
6.377/215
A successful TV star during the 1960s, former "Hogan's Heroes" actor Bob Crane projects a wholesome family-man image, but this front masks his persona...
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Auto Focus
1986
One Police Plaza
9/1
A veteran New York City Police Lieutenant's investigation of a woman's murder uncovers corruption in high places.
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One Police Plaza
1994
Jack Reed: A Search for Justice
5.786/14
Chicago police detective Jack Reed investigates the brutal murder of a stripper while he deals with corruption and bureaucracy within his own departme...
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Jack Reed: A Search for Justice
1998
The Naked Man
4.067/15
A man takes matters into his own hands when a pharmaceutical kingpin moves into his town to cause some real trouble.
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The Naked Man
2002
Changing Lanes
6.284/1199
A rush-hour fender-bender on New York City's crowded FDR Drive, under most circumstances, wouldn't set off a chain reaction that could decimate two pe...
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Changing Lanes
2021
Me To Play
0/0
As their bodies give way to Parkinson's disease, two New York actors put their hearts into one final Off-Broadway production of Beckett's "Endgame," t...
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Me To Play
1987
Ironweed
6.3/142
An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.
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Ironweed
2016
No Pay, Nudity
4/3
Aging actor Lester Rosenthal (Gabriel Byrne), who has lost his way with his career, with his family, and with his friends (Nathan Lane, Frances Conroy...
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No Pay, Nudity
1981
The 6th Annual Young Comedians
8/1
Tom and Dick Smothers are joined by some of the nation's top rising young comedians, taped at the Roxy in Los
Angeles.
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The 6th Annual Young Comedians
2024
Tornado
0/0
A struggling contractor risks his young sons' well-being to cut a sweet deal.
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