Joe Seneca

Joe Seneca

Born: January 14, 1919
Died: August 15, 1996
in Cleveland, Ohio, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joe Seneca (January 14, 1919 – August 15, 1996) was an American film and television actor who had a lengthy Hollywood career, portraying bit parts in many major films and television sitcoms spanning from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Seneca was born Joel McGhee in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to his Hollywood career, Seneca belonged to the R&B singing group "The Three Riffs", performing at upscale supper clubs in New York City. He was also a songwriter and had big hits with "Talk to Me" which was sung by Little Willie John and "Break It to Me Gently", which was a smash twice, once by Brenda Lee in 1962, and once by Juice Newton in 1982. His song "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" was recorded by Ike & Tina Turner, Manfred Mann and The Spencer Davis Group.

Arguably his most well-known roles are that of bluesman Willie Brown in Crossroads and Dr. Meddows in The Blob, the evil head of a government team sent to contain the title creature.

Seneca also made multiple appearances on The Cosby Show as Hillman President Dr. Zachariah J. Hanes. He also played Alvin Newcastle [1]on an episode of The Golden Girls entitled "Old Friends."

Joe appeared in Spike Lee's "School Daze" as the Mission College President McPherson in 1988.

Joe appeared on Matlock: The Blues Singer Episode May 9, 1989.

Joe also appeared in Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" Music Video In the late 80's.

He died from asthma at the age of 77.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Joe Seneca, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies for Joe Seneca...

A Time to Kill
Title: A Time to Kill
Character: Reverend Isaiah Street
Released: July 24, 1996
Type: Movie
A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.
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Title: Christy
Released: April 3, 1994
Type: TV
Christy is an American historical fiction drama series which aired on CBS from April 1994 to August 1995, for twenty episodes. Christy was based on the novel Christy by Catherine Marshall, the widow of Senate chaplain Peter Marshall. The novel had been a bestseller in 1968, and the week following the debut of the TV-movie and program saw the novel jump from #120 up to #15 on the USA Today bestseller list. Series regular Tyne Daly won an Emmy Award for her work on the series.
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The Vernon Johns Story
Title: The Vernon Johns Story
Character: Deacon Wilkes
Released: January 15, 1994
Type: Movie
In 1948, Johns served as the outspoken spiritual leader of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Incensed at the racial injustice that pervaded the South, he was determined to fight for equality for all African Americans.
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The Saint of Fort Washington
Title: The Saint of Fort Washington
Character: Spits
Released: November 3, 1993
Type: Movie
Matthew, a young schizophrenic, finds himself out on the street when a slumlord tears down his apartment building. Soon, he finds himself in even more dire straits, when he is threatened by Little Leroy, a thug who is one of the tough denizens of the Fort Washington Shelter for Men. He reaches out to Jerry, a streetwise combat veteran, who takes Matthew under his wing as a son. The relationship between these two men grows as they attempt to conquer the numbing isolation of homelessness.
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Title: seaQuest DSV
Character: Professor Bingham
Released: September 12, 1993
Type: TV
In the early 21st century, mankind has colonized the oceans. The United Earth Oceans Organization enlists Captain Nathan Bridger and the submarine seaQuest DSV to keep the peace and explore the last frontier on Earth.
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Malcolm X
Title: Malcolm X
Character: Toomer
Released: November 18, 1992
Type: Movie
A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the '50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.
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Mississippi Masala
Title: Mississippi Masala
Character: Williben Williams
Released: September 18, 1991
Type: Movie
Years after her Indian family was forced to flee their home in Uganda, twentysomething Mina finds herself helping to run a motel in the faraway land of Mississippi. It's there that a passionate romance with the charming Black carpet cleaner Demetrius challenges the prejudices of their conservative families and exposes the rifts between the region's Indian and African American communities.
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Title: Law & Order
Character: Lionel Jackson
Released: September 13, 1990
Type: TV
In cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to convict the perpetrator by proving the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Working together, these expert teams navigate all sides of the complex criminal justice system to make New York a safer place.
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Title: Doogie Howser, M.D.
Released: September 19, 1989
Type: TV
Doogie Howser is a doctor. He is also a 16-year-old genius who graduated college at age 10 and finished medical school at age 14. But he is still a teenager, with normal teenage friends and problems. But unlike a normal teenager, he is just learning to drive while also consulting on serious medical cases like heart transplants.
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Tarzan in Manhattan
Title: Tarzan in Manhattan
Character: Joseph
Released: April 15, 1989
Type: Movie
The ape man flies to New York, where cabby Jane and her father help him rescue Cheetah from a madman.
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The Blob
Title: The Blob
Character: Dr. Meddows
Released: August 5, 1988
Type: Movie
In Arborville, California, three high school students try to protect their hometown from a gelatinous alien life form that engulfs everything it touches. The first to discover the substance and live to tell about it, the trio witness the Blob destroying an elderly man, then it growing to a terrifying size. But no one else has seen the goo, and the police refuse to believe the kids without proof.
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Title: China Beach
Released: April 26, 1988
Type: TV
Dateline: November 1967. Within klicks of Danang, Vietnam, sits a U.S. Army base, bar and hospital on China Beach filled with wounded soldiers and one very lovely but damaged Army Nurse Colleen McMurphy. Many heroes, dead and alive, try to make sense of life and death in between bourbon, bullets and battles.
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School Daze
Title: School Daze
Character: President Harold McPherson
Released: February 12, 1988
Type: Movie
Fraternity and sorority members clash with other students at a historically black college during homecoming weekend.
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Title: Friday the 13th: The Series
Character: Hedley
Released: October 3, 1987
Type: TV
Micki and Ryan with the help of their friend Jack try to recover cursed antiques so they can store them in safety inside the antique store's vault.
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Big Shots
Title: Big Shots
Character: Ferryman
Released: October 2, 1987
Type: Movie
Following the death of his father, a suburbanite runs away from home and winds up on Chicago's South Side. After being mugged, the boy befriends a young hustler and, after stealing a gangster's car, the two embark on an adventure down south in search of the hustler's estranged father.
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A Gathering of Old Men
Title: A Gathering of Old Men
Character: Clatoo
Released: May 10, 1987
Type: Movie
A regular day in a Louisiana sugarcane plantation changes course when a local white farmer is shot in self defense. A group of old, black men takes a courageous step by coming forward en masse to take responsibility for the killing of a white racist, whom one of their members has shot. As the sheriff confronts the suspects, the young plantation owner stands alone in her daring defense of this group of men, provoking racial tension that makes a compelling drama.
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Moments Without Proper Names
Title: Moments Without Proper Names
Released: January 1, 1987
Type: Movie
Moments Without Proper Names makes Parks makes himself the subject, tracing his development as a person and an artist through an hourlong, non-narrative abstract self-portrait that combines Parks’s photographs with his musical compositions and scenes from his films. It also features footage of Parks, plus interpretations of his personal reminiscences performed by actors Avery Brooks, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Joe Seneca.
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Title: Throb
Released: September 20, 1986
Type: TV
Throb is an American television sitcom broadcast in syndication from 1986 to 1988, created by Fredi Towbin. It revolved around thirty-something divorcee Sandy Beatty who gets a job at a small New Wave record label, Throb. Beatty's boss is Zach Armstrong, who looks like Michael J. Fox but dresses like Don Johnson. Beatty also has a 12-year old son named Jeremy. Beatty's best friend was Meredith, a single teacher who lived in her building, and her co-workers included hip business manager Phil Gaines, and Prudence Anne Bartlett, nicknamed Blue. During the second season, Sandy moved from her original apartment to the recently vacated penthouse in her building. She took in her co-worker, Blue, to help with rent, but the differences between straitlaced Sandy and the very free-spirited Blue became more pronounced as they both lived and worked together. Notably, it was the first time much of the American TV audience saw Jane Leeves, who later gained fame as Daphne Moon on Frasier. Also notable is the casting of a young Paul Walker, who played Jeremy Beatty for the first season. Walker became a leading man in Hollywood some 15 years later, particularly after his breakthrough role in The Fast and the Furious.
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Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story
Title: Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story
Character: Reverend
Released: May 19, 1986
Type: Movie
Outraged by the treatment of New York City’s unhoused residents, an activist brings national attention to the issue by taking their case to Congress.
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Crossroads
Title: Crossroads
Character: Willie Brown
Released: March 14, 1986
Type: Movie
A wanna-be blues guitar virtuoso seeks a long-lost song by legendary musician, Robert Johnson.
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Title: Matlock
Released: March 3, 1986
Type: TV
Matlock is an American television legal drama, starring Andy Griffith in the title role of criminal defense attorney Ben Matlock. The show, produced by The Fred Silverman Company, Dean Hargrove Productions, Viacom Productions and Paramount Television originally aired from September 23, 1986 to May 8, 1992 on NBC; and from November 5, 1992 until May 7, 1995 on ABC. The show's format is similar to that of CBS's Perry Mason, with Matlock identifying the perpetrators and then confronting them in dramatic courtroom scenes. One difference, however, was that whereas Mason usually exculpated his clients at a pretrial hearing, Matlock usually secured an acquittal at trial, from the jury.
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Title: Amazing Stories
Character: Ben Dumfy
Released: September 29, 1985
Type: TV
A truly amazing, fantastical, science fiction, funny and odd, and sometimes scary, sad and endearing anthology series presented by Steven Spielberg with guest appearances by many famous actors, actresses, and directors.
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Title: Spenser: For Hire
Released: September 20, 1985
Type: TV
Mystery and suspense series based on Robert Parker's "Spenser" novels. Spenser, a private investigator living in Boston, gets involved in a new murder mystery each episode.
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Title: The Equalizer
Character: Fossil
Released: September 18, 1985
Type: TV
Robert McCall is a former agent of a secret government agency who is now running his own private crime fighting operation where he fashions himself as "The Equalizer." It is a service for victims of the system who have exhausted all possible means of seeking justice and have nowhere to go. McCall promises to even out the odds for them.
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Title: The Golden Girls
Character: Alvin Newcastle
Released: September 14, 1985
Type: TV
Four Southern Florida seniors share a house, their dreams, and a whole lot of cheesecake. Bright, promiscuous, clueless and hilarious, these lovely, mismatched ladies form the perfect circle of friends.
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Title: 227
Released: September 14, 1985
Type: TV
A housewife sits on the stoop of her apartment building in a black neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and discusses all manner of things with her neighbors.
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Silverado
Title: Silverado
Character: Ezra
Released: July 10, 1985
Type: Movie
Four unwitting heroes cross paths on their journey to the sleepy town of Silverado. Little do they know the town where their family and friends reside has been taken over by a corrupt sheriff and a murderous posse. It's up to the sharp-shooting foursome to save the day, but first they have to break each other out of jail, and learn who their real friends are.
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Solomon Northup's Odyssey
Title: Solomon Northup's Odyssey
Character: Noah
Released: December 11, 1984
Type: Movie
This is based on a true story. Solomon Northrop is a black man in the mid 19th century before slavery was abolished. He's a born free man who works as a carpenter and is also a part time musician. One day he is approached by some men who want him to play for them. However, that is not their intention; they have kidnapped him and sold him into slavery. Now he has to endure the hardships that he has been spared because of his status as a free man. And his family who don't know what happened to him is searching for him but where do they go? And Solomon also wishes to let them know where he is so that they could get him but unfortunately no one believes his story or is willing to help him.
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Title: The Cosby Show
Released: September 20, 1984
Type: TV
The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an upper middle-class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York.
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The House of Dies Drear
Title: The House of Dies Drear
Character: Pluto
Released: June 1, 1984
Type: Movie
A young black man and his family move into a home in rural Ohio and discover that during the Civil War it was used by a Dutch immigrant to smuggle runaway slaves to freedom. Soon they begin to suspect that the ghosts of slaves who passed through there are haunting the house.
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The Evil That Men Do
Title: The Evil That Men Do
Character: Santiago
Released: March 14, 1984
Type: Movie
Professional killer Holland is forced out of retirement to break a Central American government's political torture ring when one of his friends, a Latin American journalist, is killed. The murderer, Doctor Clement Molloch, is the master sadist behind the political torture of innocent victims. Posing as a journalist, Holland lures Molloch out of his fortress-like headquarters by using his murdered friend's wife and daughter as bait. When Holland kidnaps Molloch's sister, the doctor is led on a wild chase that takes him to an abandoned opal mine where he finally comes face to face with Holland.
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The Verdict
Title: The Verdict
Character: Dr. Thompson
Released: December 8, 1982
Type: Movie
Frank Galvin is a down-on-his-luck lawyer and reduced to drinking and ambulance chasing, when a former associate reminds him of his obligations in a medical malpractice suit by serving it to Galvin on a silver platter—all parties are willing to settle out of court. Blundering his way through the preliminaries, Galvin suddenly realizes that the case should actually go to court—to punish the guilty, to get a decent settlement for his clients... and to restore his standing as a lawyer.
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The Gentleman Bandit
Title: The Gentleman Bandit
Released: May 6, 1981
Type: Movie
Based on the real-life ordeal of Baltimore priest Bernard Pagano, who was accused of several armed robberies in the late Seventies.
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Kramer vs. Kramer
Title: Kramer vs. Kramer
Character: Partygoer
Released: December 7, 1979
Type: Movie
Ted Kramer is a career man for whom his work comes before his family. His wife Joanna cannot take this anymore, so she decides to leave him. Ted is now faced with the tasks of housekeeping and taking care of himself and their young son Billy.
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The Tenth Month
Title: The Tenth Month
Character: Doorman
Released: September 16, 1979
Type: Movie
An unmarried, middle-aged woman accidentally gets pregnant by an internationally renowned pianist and decides to keep and raise the baby on her own.
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Wilma
Title: Wilma
Character: Ed Rudolph
Released: December 19, 1977
Type: Movie
The story of American track sprinter Wilma Rudolph, who overcame physical handicaps to win three gold medals in the 1960 Olympics.
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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Title: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Character: Police Sergeant
Released: October 2, 1974
Type: Movie
In New York, armed men hijack a subway car and demand a ransom for the passengers. Even if it's paid, how could they get away?