Raised in Brooklyn after his family emigrated from Ercolano, Italy, Gardenia cut his teeth in his father’s Italian-language melodrama troupe, appearing on stage from age five and later serving in the U.S. Army before transitioning to English-language theater. A life member of The Actors Studio, he earned an Obie for “Machinal” (1960) and another for “Passing Through From Exotic Places” (1969), the…
