Jon Polito's rasp and comic timing made blustering gangsters and anxious functionaries worth watching closely. We rate him for finding humour in men desperate to be taken seriously, especially in his work with the Coens.
Fi1m perspective
Johnny Caspar's bluster in Miller's Crossing (1990) is funny without making the gangster harmless. Jon Polito's raspy voice and stocky build suit the part, but his comic timing is what makes it worth watching closely. He makes the need to be taken seriously look exhausting, even for the man doing it. We laughed at Caspar because Polito lets us see the effort behind all that bluster, while keeping his volatility in view. It is the clearest reason to seek out his work.
That breakthrough began his five-film association with Joel and Ethan Coen, who understood how much he could do in a supporting part. Lou Breeze, the anxious studio functionary in Barton Fink (1991), was written for him. The change from mob boss to functionary gives the same intensity a different use: a man can be funny because he is flustered as well as because he is overbearing. We recommend both films, though the plotting of Miller's Crossing can be hard work and Barton Fink sometimes admires its own cleverness too much. Polito keeps our attention on the man trying to look in charge.
His theatre work preceded the screen career, and the precision of his comedy matters as much as the familiar voice. Television gave him a regular part as Detective Steve Crosetti in Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–94), a passionate, street-wise policeman. Then came the hapless private investigator Da Fino in The Big Lebowski (1998), his fourth Coen film. Those parts matter when considering an actor so readily associated with gangsters: the authority of a policeman and the ineptitude of a private eye give him different things to play.
The risk was repetition. Polito later complained that film-makers claiming to have written a part for him had merely rewritten Miller's Crossing. We would not ask him to discard the rasp or blunt his timing to prove that he could do something else; we would ask for a character worth applying them to. Start with Miller's Crossing, and give its complications your full attention.
Biography
Jon Polito was an American actor. He appeared as Johnny Caspar in Miller's Crossing (1990) and as Lou Breeze in Barton Fink (1991). He worked with the Coen brothers on five films in total, including The Big Lebowski (1998).
Polito was born in Philadelphia and studied theatre at Villanova University. He began his career in stage productions, including Broadway appearances in Death of a Salesman (1984 revival) and American Buffalo (1977), and received an Obie Award for off-Broadway work. On television he played Detective Steve Crosetti in the first two seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street and Phil Bartoli in the first season of Crime Story.
He amassed over 220 film and television credits across a 35-year career. Polito received the Maverick Spirit Award at the Cinequest Film Festival in 2005. He died in 2016.
