Bruno Kirby 1949 - 2006

Bruno Kirby was a busy character actor over the last 30 years. For me, if he hadn't made any other movies besides The Godfather, Part II, I still would have been saddened to hear of his passing last week at the young age of 57. As the Young Clemenza in Francis Ford Coppola's brilliant 1974 sequel to The Godfather, Kirby was perfectly cast as the younger version of Richard Castellano's Clemenza from the original film. Having grown-up in a large Italian family (on my mother's side) The Godfather films were like home movies for us and the Clemenza character could have been one of my uncles. The scene where Kirby and Robert De Niro (as the young Vito Corleone) steal a carpet for the Corleone family is one of the film's few truly hysterical moments. Kirby often played scenes for laughs in his films. His roles in films like When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers and Tin Men were all memorable. But his scene-stealing scenes as the Sinatra-loving chauffeur in This Is Spinal Tap, and the D.J. wannabe in Good Morning, Vietnam are righteously funny. Kirby would later spoof the Godfather films along with Marlon Brando in 1990's The Freshman. His few dramatic turns were in TV films and on the Broadway stage, but his work in Donnie Brasco, Sleepers and as the creepy coach in The Basketball Diaries were all testament's to the depths of his abilities. Had he had more years ahead of him as an actor we would have seen so many more memorable characters to come. So his death this past Monday in Los Angeles from complications related to leukemia was a tragic loss and a sad surprise.

Bruno Kirby Movies