Sal Mineo

Mineo, whose father Salvatore, Sr. was an immigrant from Sicily (his American-born mother Josephine was Neapolitan), coveted the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972).

Suffered from a chronic right eye infection that was usually brought about by severe emotional stress. He often had to wear an eye patch or dark sunglasses in public until it healed.

Directed and starred as Rocky, a hardcore prisoner, in the controversial homosexual prison drama "Fortune and Men's Eyes" in Los Angeles in 1969. It was a popular stage hit at the time and co-starring as Mineo's innocent young blond victim was pre-"Miami Vice" star Don Johnson.

Mineo longed to be a movie director, and he directed the 1969 Los Angeles production of the prison drama Fortune and Men's Eyes (1971). The play, which deals with homosexuality, had premiered in Ontario in 1965 and then opened in New York Off-Broadway in 1967 and had run for a year. In addition to directing, Mineo played the role of Rocky, a prison bully, who rapes a naive young prisoner, Smitty (played by Don Johnson in the L.A. production). Mineo's staging emphasized violence and sexuality. He added a scene to the play, staging Rocky's rape of Smitty in the prison shower, an event that had been kept off stage in earlier productions. The Los Angeles production, which was eventually moved to New York (without Mineo as an actor) featured full frontal nudity. Mineo also directed a subsequent San Francisco production. Although playwright John Herbert did not initially object to Mineo's alterations, he vociferously criticized Mineo's Los Angeles and New York stagings. (Being a convicted felon, the Canadian Herbert was unable to enter the U.S. to actually see the productions.) Herbert refused to sell him the film rights to his play, and the estrangement obviated any chance of Mineo being involved in the

In 1957, at the height of his fame, Bob Hope announced on a TV special that all public schools in Brooklyn would be closed the following day in honor of Sal Mineo's birthday. Hope meant this as a joke, but many youngsters in Brooklyn took it seriously, and there was record absenteeism in the borough's public schools the following day. Hope ultimately issued a public retraction and urged kids to stay in school.