Nick Mancuso Biography

(2005)

Internationally recognized Canadian actor Nick Mancuso began his acting career in Toronto, Canada at the age of sixteen in 1964. Since then his wide ranging career which has spanned over 40 years of work in the profession of film, television and stage in Canada, Hollywood and Europe has seen him star in well over 80 movies, made for television M.O.W.’s and four television series including Stingray for N.B.C. in the mid 80’s.

In the early 70’s he was founding member of the initial movement that established the creation of several theatres including Canadian Stage, Tarragon, Factory Lab theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille. He has since appeared in over 80 plays throughout North America having worked with the likes of Tennessee Williams, Michael Ondajtee and Israel Horowitz.

In 1977 he starred in his first motion picture "Nightwing" for Columbia Pictures directed by Arthur Hiller and produced by Martin Ransohoff.

 In 1982 he won the Genie for his performance in the cult classic "Ticket To Heaven" In that year the picture opened the Toronto International Film Festival. Three of his films have been inducted into the National Film Review in Washington D.C. as one of the Ten Best Pictures of the Year. The legendary critic Walter Kerr of the New York Times called Mancuso’s performance in Merchant of Venice at Stratford Ontario one of the best interpretations of the role of Bassanio in 250 years.

In the late 80’s the Los Angeles Times referred to Mancuso as "A Renaissance Man" and Kevin Thomas called his performance in "Ticket To Heaven" one of the best performances of the decade.

He has garnered acting awards in Canada, the U.S.A. and in Europe. He has worked in over 10 countries and in three languages having starred opposite legendary performers such as Sophia Loren, Catherine De Neuve and Charlton Heston. In Hollywood he has been called "an actors actor" and "one of the best" by icon producer Robert Evans, producer of "Chinatown" and "Love Story".

In 1983 he was invited to become an associate of the Actors Studio by co-chairman, actor, Martin Landau. During that period he was submitted for a Golden Globe and Oscar consideration.

He starred in Tri-Star’s first motion picture "Blame it On the Night" executive producer, Sydney Pollock and in the late 80's worked for Oliver Stone in the miniseries "Wild Palms" opposite Jim Belushi, Angie Dickinson and Robert Loggia.

In 1985, after working with Kim Bassinger in the film "Motherlode" he was invited by then president Charlton Heston to become a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which he refused on philosophic grounds.

In the early 90’s his series "Matrix", shot in Toronto and with Carrie Anne Moss was the first television series to be produced by the U.S.A Network.

In total his body of work includes well over 120 film projects and has worked for just about every major studio in Hollywood.

In 2000, after shooting the TV series "Call of the Wild" Mancuso moved back to Toronto to raise his son with his wife Nadia. During that period he wrote and starred in 3 plays at the Theatre Passe Muraille and Tarragon. In 2004 he directed his adaptation of "Duse" and filmed a pilot he wrote entitled "The Poets" and "Hotel Praha".

Mr. Mancuso is a published author and his new book entitled "Oedipus L.A. tres-mitos"is soon to be published by Guernica Press. He is also the inventor of the T.O.P. System, for acting and is currently writing several books, including "Acting For "Everyone", "Dairy of a Malibu Madman", "Hollywood Icon" and "College St Blues".

Mr. Mancuso is an associate of the Piero Dusa Acting Conservatory in Santa Monica California. In his spare time Mr Mancuso, works with the homeless and has founded the "Homeless People Theatre". He is currently in rehearsal for a show he has written on love poetry (love in a land…), with singer songwriter ex-wife Barbara Williams which will open at the Promenade Playhouse in Los Angeles and is organizing another production of his theatrical/performance/soundscape – "In the domain of the ordinary" in Toronto. Currently he is shooting a picture he has authored entitled "The Dinner" with fellow Canadian actor Maury Chaykin, to be completed in Nov. 2005.

He has recently played opposite Chazz Palminteri and Usher in the soon to be released "Dying for Dolly" for Lions Gate and with Stephen Segal in "Today You Die".

Mancuso was born in Mammola, Italy and migrated at the age of 5 to Toronto in 1954. He spends his time between Malibu, California and his home in the Annex.

 

Nick Mancuso Biography

(2010)

by Kate Johnson

Mancuso, Nick née Nicodemo Antonio Massimo Mancuso, actor, screenwriter, playwright, director (born at Mammola, Italy 29 May 1948). Nick Mancuso immigrated to Canada with his mother and sister when he was 6 years old and grew up in Toronto, where he began acting at Bloor Collegiate as a teenager. Although he attended the University of Toronto and Guelph University and received a BA in behavioral psychology in 1968, he soon found himself immersed in Toronto’s burgeoning indigenous theatre.

Working across the country in the early 1970s, Mancuso performed at VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE THEATRE, NEPTUNE THEATRE, CENTAUR THEATRE and Halifax’s Pier One experimental theatre, where he was an associate artistic director for a season. In 1971 he left this position to work with Martin Kinch and playwright Michael HOLLINGSWORTH at Toronto Free Theatre, starring in plays such as Michael ONDAATJE’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Carol BOLT’s Red Emma and Des McAnuff’s Underground. He was part of a group of young actors, writers and directors — among them Saul RUBINEK, Kate NELLIGAN, R.H. THOMPSON and Maury CHAYKIN — who established their own theatres such as THEATRE PASSE MURAILLE, FACTORY THEATRE and the Toronto Free Theatre (now CANADIAN STAGE).

With his intensity and brooding good looks Mancuso gained a reputation for playing powerful, provocative parts. In television he had a role in Red Emma (1974), directed by Martin Kinch and Allen KING, and appeared with Quebec actress Carole LAURE in Gilles CARLE’s Thousand Moons (1976), made for the CBC series For the Record. In 1976, director George Bloomfield cast him in the CBC-TV production of Clifford Odet’s Paradise Lost, a performance that was hailed by critics. That year he joined the STRATFORD FESTIVAL  and under the artistic direction of Robin PHILLIPS he appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Jessica TANDY and in Anthony and Cleopatra opposite Maggie Smith. Under the direction of Bill GLASSCO he starred as Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice with Hume CRONYN and Jackie BURROUGHS.

 A year later Mancuso was working in American playwright Tennessee Williams’s play Tiger Tail in Atlanta, Georgia, when Columbia Pictures offered him a starring role in the thriller Nightwing, directed by fellow Canadian Arthur HILLER. Though not a box office success, it established Mancuso in Hollywood and since then his career has spanned television, film and stage in more than a dozen countries.

He won a GENIE Award for best actor for his performance as a victim of cult brainwashing in Ticket to Heaven (1981), followed by the Quebec epic Maria Chapdelaine (1983), for which he received a second Genie nomination. He played a Lothario in Heartbreakers (1984) and after Night Magic (1985), based on a story by Leonard COHEN, he had the lead roles in the series Stingray (1986–87) and Matrix (1992–93). He also had supporting roles in Steven Seagal’s action films Under Siege (1992) and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995). Nick Mancuso has appeared in more than 120 movies, in television series such as Call of the Wild and in miniseries including Wild Palms (1993) and the Canadian production of Lives of the Saints (2004), starring Sophia Loren. 

He maintains his love of theatre with self-penned plays and one-man shows including Hotel Praha, staged at Theatre Passe Muraille, The Death of Socrates, broadcast across the country on CBC Radio, and Moscow Dog. He co-wrote and directed Duse, a play about the famous Italian actress Eleonora Duse, which he produced at the TARRAGON THEATRE starring Jennifer DALE.

He is one of the organizers of the Pirandello Theatre Society and the Toronto Italian Film Festival, winning its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. He was also involved in the creation of the Italian Walk of Fame in Toronto, the Italo-Canadian Heritage Foundation, and the Working Actors Group (W.A.G.), which addresses health and safety issues and residual rights for Canadian actors. A painter and poet, he has published the books Mediterranean Men, Oracle and A Gathering of Shades and his paintings have been exhibited in Los Angeles and New York.