VINCENT PHILIP D’ONOFRIO DONE

 

D’Onofrio is an American actor, producer and singer of Italian descent with ancestors from Sicily. He was born in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1959.

His father Gennaro D’Onofrio, an assistant theater-production and interior designer, met his mother Phyllis Minicola, a restaurant server and manager in Hawaii during his military assignment in 1956.  After having two daughters, Antoinette in 1956, and Elizabeth in 1957, they had Vincent.

D’Onofrio’s parents divorced when he was young. He spent most of his youth with his mother and his step-father George Meyer and his son and daughter.  His step-father operated a number of community theaters; consequently, introducing him to the field of acting. His first interest was in sleight of hand and magic that he learned from Cuban entertainers.  During his teenage years he worked backstage in set- buildings and sound production.

After graduating from Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School he began appearing front stage. Following high school he enrolled for eighteen months at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he engaged in small community-theater productions. Subsequent to that, he studied method-acting at the American Stanislavsky Theater and the Actors Studio under acting-coaches. This experience helped him acquire his first paid role in off Broadway’s, This Property Is Condemned. He went on and appeared in a number of productions—Of Mice and Men, and Sexual Perversity in Chicago. He continued his career by performing in many New York University productions. During this time he worked as a bouncer at the Hard Rock Café and other city clubs. Standing at six foot three he apparently had a physique to go with it. In an interview, he related, “It was pretty crazy. There was a lot of violence. Some of it was really tough to be around.”

In 1984, he had his Broadway debut as Nick Rizzoli in Open Admissions. Two years later he applied for a role as Pvt. Leonard Lawrence, in Full Metal Jacket, which he considers his defining moment in acting. He sent audition tapes to director Stanley Kubrick. Four tapes later he got the role. The original Pvt. Lawrence was a skinny red neck; however, Kubrick thought otherwise, believing the role would have a greater impact if he was big and clumsy. Bizarrely, the production required that D’Onofrio gain seventy pounds to fulfill the role. He did and brought his weight to 280 pounds. He holds the record for the most weight gained by an actor for a movie. He surpassed Robert De Niro’s sixty pounds gain to play Jake La Motta in the Raging Bull (1980).

In 1998, D’Onofrio, his father and sister Elizabeth founded the RiverRun International Film Festival in Brevard, North Carolina. A few years later, Dale Pollock, former film producer and dean at the School of Filmmaking at the University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts, took control and moved the festival to Winston-Salem

After his defining moment in film D’Onofrio continued to play as a supporting actor for many pictures, by 1997, he went into television and received an Emmy nomination for his appearance as John Lange, the doomed victim in Homicide: Life on the Street episode of “Subway”. Two years later he turned down a role in the Sopranos. By 2001, he accepted his best-known role as Det. Robert Goren on the television show Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

In November of 2005, D’Onofrio won best actor at the Stockholm International Film Festival, for his role as Mike Cobb in the film, Thumbsucker.  D’Onofrio spread his wings into teaching, acting, directing, and producing many films in concert with many others. He made a debut in music on October 27, 2009, as country singer character, George Geronimo Gerkle at Joe’s Pub in New York City. 

In 2008, he and his sister Toni, started hosting events to raise money for the Utah Meth Cops Project. He served as the project’s spokesperson from 2009 to 2012.  He is a supporter of law enforcement, and since 2010, he has been the spokesperson for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and Museum. He narrates the documentary, Heroes Behind The Badge, 2012, a story of four fallen officers and the impact their deaths have on their families, coworkers, and communities. In 2013, a follow up of the documentary—Sacrifice and Survival was released. D’Onofrio continues to be involved in many activities.

D’Onofrio has three children, one a daughter from a long standing relationship with Greta Scacchi with whom he starred in a number of films. On March 22, 1997 D’Onofrio married Dutch model Carin van der Donk, they had a son born in 1999. Soon after his birth they separated, only to reconcile and have a second son born in 2008.

Many refer to D’Onofrio as “an actor’s actor.” The wide variety of roles he has played and the quality of his work, and the diversity of engagements—teacher, director and producer have earned him a reputation as a resourceful talent. He is the Kingpin of Daredevil, a 2017 Netflix series.

Photographs are from Wikipedia, and the last one is of Vincent and his second wife Carin.