Stand Up and Be Conte

There are many stories, some seemingly folk-lore and perhaps even a bit of conjecture as to how character actor Richard Conte came to make his grand entrance into the celluloid world. One of the accounts suggests it was Elia Kazan and John Garfield that summoned him into the business when noticing him as they dined in the restaurant he was working at. And another of the
legends, is that he was given an ultimatum, whilst working at same Connecticut restaurant in aforementioned tale, after several attempts of the now desperate play director Joseph Pevney, to get him to last minute replace an actor that abandoned role that the timid Conte emphatically refused. It is said that after all that inveigling failed Pevney, he was then bullied by his boss to either take the role or get the pink slip. Despite the true account or not, Conte did ultimately take that part, screaming and kicking all the way...it may have well been for Edward Knoblock's Kismet, for indeed it was star-written that this chap had chops and he would subsequently become one of the greatest supporting actors of film noir.

Nicholas Peter Conte (1910-75) wore many hats before he was 'discovered' and would go the occupational gamut from truck driver to supper singing waiter and beyond. It would not be until the actor turned twenty-nine that he would secure his first substantial acting role in Nicholas' Consentino's Broadway wower Moon Over Mulberry Street, and on the heels of his exceptional performance, would be cast in several other plays and later on in 1939, would make his cinematic debut as hobo Tony Casselli in Richard Cortez's melodrama Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence. 

               Conte's first feature in 1939 - Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence



Conte's timing was impeccable, many a studio actor was overseas serving time in the military as it was smack dab in the midst of the second World War. Conte played all his cards proper and the once shy and reserved waiter, would now be seen just about everywhere on the cinematic map. From his first substantial turn in 1943's Guadalcanal Diary to his final destination in 1975's Return of the Exorcist, and even a chance to sit up high in the auteur's chair, this man certainly wasn't missing a day's toil. 

             Conte always knew - less is noir - here with Shelley Winters

Conte was touted as one of the faces of film noir, in particular the B-status entries, in which many were vehicles for him. Conte always made his prescence known and it was an inherent quality, little  about this actor was contrived. One such example of this was  in Robert Siodmak's impassioned crime film Cry of the City, just two apt little words uttered as Conte's bullet-riddled Martin Rome was wheeled into an emergency surgery, in a desperate state would muster every last iota of energy to scowl at deceptive attorney Niles (Berry Kroeger) and his words were "Go Fry!" A twenty minute dissertation, could not have said more. Few actors could be that economical and create such an effect.

              Hey, looks like Conte doesn't do shotgun


In an even lesser known release Phil Karlson's The Brothers Rico (1957) Conte is big kahuna cast as Eddie Rico, a long retired mobster who vehemently wants to put that life behind him, is summoned back into the underworld, as a result of his brothers involvement in the same syndicate. (Interestingly blacklisted scribe Dalton Trumbo penned the story and also penned the first film Richard Conte debuted in ,see above). Even with his veneers to sequester his vulnerability Conte's character is also unashamedly stripped down to the quick. And that is what was so damned beautiful about the actor how human he would always be. Many of the contemporaneous actors in hardboiled fare, would often up the tough-guy ante, but Conte didn't mind keeping it local. The buzz title; character actor is apposite here - for Conte truly had character.