Paul Picerni

Paul Picerni

Birth : 1922-12-01, Corona, New York, USA

Death : 2011-01-12

History

As a child Paul Picerni had aspirations to become an attorney until he acted in an eighth-grade play and later learned that the school principal liked his performance and called him "a born actor". He next appeared in little theater productions, then (after World War II Air Force service) on the stage at Loyola University. Picerni was acting in a play in Hollywood when he was spotted by Solly V. Bianco, head of talent at Warner Brothers; brought to the studio, the young actor was given a role in Le grand assaut(1950). This WWII actioner turned out to be aptly named, as it led to a Warners contract for Picerni and a long succession of roles at that studio. Best-known for his second-banana role on the TV classic Les incorruptibles (1959) with Robert Stack, Picerni is the father of eight and grandfather of ten. - IMDb Mini Biography

Profile

Paul Picerni

Movies

The Adventures of Errol Flynn
Self - Flynn Co-Star (archive footage)
A documentary about the life of Errol Flynn, with recollections from friends and family.
The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission
Ernesto Ferruci
Learning of a Nazi plot to attack Washington, D.C. with a deadly nerve gas, Major Wright leads twelve convicts on a suicide mission deep into occupied France to destroy the secret factory where the poison is made.
Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story
Lt. Lagason
Filmed on location at Alcatraz Island, this two-part "whole story" actually concentrates on a handful of the denizens behind the cold grey walls of "The Rock". Michael Beck plays the real-life Clarence Carnes, an Oklahoma Choctaw Indian said to be the youngest man ever incarcerated in the notorious maximum security prison. Serving a 99-year sentence for a gas station holdup and murder, Carnes makes periodic attempts to escape, the final attempt being the most violent. Many of the subordinate characters are fictional (as are most of the details concerning Carnes' escape efforts); the one exception is Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", here portrayed by Art Carney as a gentle, kindly philosopher. Telly Savalas, a costar of the Burt Lancaster vehicle Birdman of Alcatraz, also guest starred in the 1980 film. Originally titled Alcatraz and Clarence Carnes, this made-for-TV movie wavers between gritty realism and "I'm bustin' outta here!" artifice.
Marciano
John Addelli
A highly romanticized dramatization of the life of Rocky Marciano, the only heavyweight champion to have retired with a perfect record.
Escape to Athena
Zeno's Man
During the World War II, the prisoners of a German camp in a Greek island are trying to escape. They not only want their freedom, but also seek an ineffable treasure hidden in a monastery at the summit of the island's mountain.
Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
Kurt
After "The Poseidon Adventure", in which the ship got flipped over by a tidal wave, the ship drifts bottom-up in the sea. While the passengers are still on board waiting to be rescued, two rivaling salvage parties enter the ship on search for money, gold and a small amount of plutonium.
The Last Hurrah
Dr. Mike Santangelo
The longtime head of a powerful political machine is determined to win a fourth election and stay in power, despite challenges to his regime by young, dissatisfied opponents, and his worries that his age and his ill health may have an effect on the election's outcome.
Something for Joey
Joe Paterno
This is based on the true story about the relationship between Penn State football player John Cappelletti and his younger brother Joey, who has leukemia. John and Joey's bond is a strong one. Joey hangs out with John in the Penn State locker room, and inspires him to be the top college football player in the country. Their bond knows no boundaries and goes beyond making touchdowns and winning awards.
Lucy Gets Lucky
Packy West
Lucy pulls out all the stops in Las Vegas to see her favorite entertainer, Dean Martin. Lucy gets a job working at the MGM Grand casino and high-stakes hijinks follow.
Big Rose: Double Trouble
Blass
Rose Winters, a private detective out of Los Angeles, teams with Ed Mills, a somewhat inexperienced young detective, to find out who is blackmailing a wealthy contractor.
The Fearmaker
Kenneth
A world-famous stage performer returns home following her father's death, only to find greed and evil awaiting.
Kotch
Dr. Caudillo
When retired salesman Joseph Kotcher begins to feel pressure to move out of the house he shares with the family of his son, he opts to embark on a road trip instead of settling in a retirement home. Befriending Erica, a young pregnant woman and his grandson's former nanny, Kotch begins to finds new meaning in life as he helps her prepare to welcome her baby into the world.
The Old Man Who Cried Wolf
Det. Green
Emile Pulska is visiting his old friend Abe Stillman. During the visit they are attacked and Emile is struck senseless. When he wakes up he is told that Abe is dead, dead by natural causes, the doctors tell him. When Emile insists that they were attacked, his relatives try to give him psychiatric help. Emile decides to try to find the killers himself, but someone is watching his every step...
Airport
Dr. Compagno
Melodrama about a bomber on board an airplane, an airport almost closed by snow, and various personal problems of the people involved.
Land Raiders
Carney / Arturo
An outlaw committing a string of robberies and murders manages to blame the crimes on Apaches, bringing about an Indian war.
Che!
Hector
Biography of Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who helped Fidel Castro in his struggle against the corrupt Batista regime, eventually resulting in the overthrow of that government and Castro's taking over of Cuba. The film covers Guevara's life from when he first landed in Cuba in 1956 to his death in an ambush by government troops in the mountains of Bolivia in 1967.
The Scalphunters
Frank
Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave, a rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them.
Pages of Death
Lead Cop
A campy, over-the-top educational short that tells the story of a young man who becomes deranged from reading pornographic magazines.
Fury River
Guy Perro
Rogers Rangers fight the French & Indians in Canada while searching for a waterway which will lead to this ocean.
Strangers When We Meet
Arthur Gerandi
A suburban architect loves his wife but is bored with his marriage and with his work, so he takes up with the neglected, married beauty who lives down the street.
The Killers of Mussolini
Lt. Alfredo
As the Salo Republic crumbles around him, Mussolini, along with his mistress and several of his ministers flee with retreating Nazi soldiers, but are caught at the town of Dongo by red partisans. All are brutally executed without trial.
The Young Philadelphians
Louis Donetti
Up and coming young lawyer Anthony Lawrence faces several ethical and emotional dilemmas as he climbs the Philadelphia social ladder. His personal and professional skills are tested as he tries to balance the needs of his fiance Joan, the expectations of his colleagues and his own obligation to defend his friend Chester on a murder count.
Torpedo Run
Lt. Burt Fisher
A submarine commander is on a relentless pursuit of a Japanese aircraft carrier in the South Seas during World War II.
The Man Who Died Twice
George
An innocent nightclub singer becomes mixed up in illegal drug dealings shortly after witnessing her husband's death and the murder of a couple of narcotics agents.
Marjorie Morningstar
Philip Berman
While working as a counselor at a summer camp, college-student Marjorie Morgenstern falls for 32-year-old Noel Airman, a would-be dramatist working at a nearby summer theater. Like Marjorie, he is an upper-middle-class New York Jew, but has fallen away from his roots, and Marjorie's parents object among other things to his lack of a suitable profession. Noel himself warns Marjorie repeatedly that she's much too naive and conventional for him, but they nonetheless fall in love.
Return to Warbow
Deputy sheriff
Three escaped prisoners return to the site of a robbery to find the stolen money that was never recovered. Western.
The Brothers Rico
Gino Rico
Eddie Rico, the erstwhile bookkeeper for a big Mafia boss, is now making a living as an honest merchant in Florida with his family. Things go sour when the police start a search for his syndicate-linked brothers who are on the lam after a big hit, forcing Eddie to get involved with the Mafia again.
Omar Khayyam
Commander
Omar Khayyam was one of the greatest Persian poets. He was also a brilliant mathematician. Though his quatrains were written in the 11th century, they are still popular the world over. The details of his life are unknown, so this movie invents a biography for him and includes in it his real achievements - the invention of a new calendar and the penning of those epigrammatic poems. This film has him romancing a sultan's bride and foiling the assassin sect's plot to kill the sultan's son.
The Big Caper
Harry
A con artist moves into a small town to spearhead a payroll robbery.
The Shadow on the Window
Bigelow
Three delinquents murder a prosperous farmer at an isolated farm house. One witness to the crime - the dead man's secretary - is then taken hostage. The other witness - her young son - is thrown into state of shock. Can he recover soon enough to help the police - and his father - rescue his mother before it's too late?
Flight to Hong Kong
Michael Quisto
On an airliner bound for Hong Kong, Tony (Rory Calhoun), a career crook who deals in stolen diamonds, agonizes over whether he should stick with his girlfriend (Dolores Donlon) or pursue Pamela (Barbara Rush), an intriguing novelist with whom he's instantly infatuated. Viewing Tony's dastardly deeds as great material for her new book, Pamela gladly encourages him to continue his criminal behavior.
The Come On
Jannings, assistant D.A.
A con woman tries to swindle her partner-in-crime husband with the help of one of her former marks. But is she to be trusted?
Miracle in the Rain
Priest
Wartime romance about a lonely man and woman who meet one rainy afternoon in New York.
Bobby Ware Is Missing
Alfred Gledhill
This suspense film revolves around the crime of child abduction. The parents of the missing child undertake a feverish search for their son. The police are contacted, and a ransom letter is received.
To Hell and Back
Valentino
The true WWII story of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in U.S. history. Based on the autobiography of Audie Murphy who stars as himself in the film.
Wiretapper
Herbie
A cash-strapped electrical engineer with a criminal past vows to go straight when he marries his longtime girlfriend, but he has second thoughts when the mob offers big money for his wiretapping services.
Lord of the Jungle
Paul Gavin
The jungle boy tries to stop a herd of rogue elephants.
Hell's Island
Eduardo Martin
After being dumped by his fiancée, hard-drinking and depressed Mark Cormack loses his job in the Los Angeles district attorney's office and serves as bouncer in a Las Vegas casino. A wheelchair-using stranger Barzland hires him to locate a ruby that disappeared in a Caribbean plane crash. He lures Cormack into doing the job by telling him it may be in the possession of the very woman who jilted him. The ex-detective flies to remote island Santo Rosario to find the stone and investigate the mystery. When he finds his old flame he finds that her husband is in prison. Cormack, again falling for Janet, is convinced into helping him break out of jail. But Janet has other plans.
Dial Red O
Norman Roper
The first of the five films where Bill Elliott played a detective lieutenant in the L.A Sheriff's department, Dial Red "O" (the correct title with the number 0 (zero), as on a telephone dial, shown in ") opens with war-torn veteran Ralph Wyatt getting word that his wife is divorcing him, and he flees the psychiatric ward of the veteran's hospital, wanting to talk to her. His escape touches off an all-out manhunt, led by Lieutenant Andy Flynn of the sheriff's department.
The Adventures of Hajji Baba
Nurel-Din
In Ispahan, Persia, Hajji Baba is leaving his father's shop to seek a greater fortune, while the Princess Fawzia is trying to talk her father, the Caliph into giving her in marriage to Nur-El-Din, a rival prince known far and wide as mean and fickle. Her father intends Fawzia for Fawzia to marry a friend and ally, and makes plans to send her to him.
The Bounty Hunter
Jud
A year after a violent train robbery the Pinkerton detective agency hires a bounty hunter to find the three remaining killers. He tracks them to Twin Forks but has no clue to their identity. Tensions surface as just his presence in town acts as a catalyst.
The Shanghai Story
Emilio De Verno
Shanghai, China. The last expatriate Westerners still living in the city are imprisoned in a hotel by the communist authorities in order to find the spy hiding among them.
Pushover
Usher (uncredited)
A police detective falls for the bank robber's girlfriend he is supposed to be tailing.
Drive a Crooked Road
Carl
A mechanic gets caught up with the mob when he falls for a gangster's girlfriend.
His Majesty O'Keefe
Spanish Ship Owner (uncredited)
Men steal for it. Nations go to war for it. The it is oil - and it grows on trees. Coconut oil is the precious lifeblood of 1870s South Seas traders. And lots of real blood will be spilled to get it! Screen royalty Burt Lancaster ist His Majesty O'Keefe in this last of three adventures that (along with The Flame and the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate) blew a revitalizing wind into the sails of the swashbucker genre. Action, cunning and derring-do are watchwords of the title seafarer as he befriends, defends and ultimately rules the islanders of exotic Yap. Lensed on gorgeus Fiji locations, grandly scored by Robert Farnon and rousingly directed by Byron Haskin, His Majesty O'Keefe delivers heroics of regal proportions.
The Desert Song
Hassan
Shiek Yousseff, poses as a friend of the French while secretly plotting to overthrow them. Apposing Yousseff are the Riffs, whose secret leader, The Red Shadow, is Paul Bonnard, a professor who is studying the desert, and whose attacks on the supply trains intended for Yousseff keep the Riff villages in food. Foreign Legion General Birabeau arrives to conduct an investigation, accompanied by his daughter, Margot. Birabeau hires Bonnard to tutor her, and she is attracted to a Legionaire captain, Claud Fontaine. While the general, Bonnard and Fontaine pay a visit to Yousseff, an American newspaper man, Benji Kidd, discovers a secret way in and out of Yousseff's palace, with the aid of Azuri, a dancing girl in love with Bonnard. The latter is forced to resume his role as the Riffs leader, and kidnap Margot until he can convince her of Yousseff's treachery. But Yousseff's men attack the Riff camp and take Margot prisoner.
The System
David Wiley
A gambling boss is pressured by the law and press when a crusade is started against him after one of his collectors becomes a killer.
House of Wax
Scott Andrews
A New York sculptor who opens a wax museum to showcase the likenesses of famous historical figures runs into trouble with his business partner, who demands that the exhibits become more extreme in order to increase profits.
She's Back on Broadway
Jud Kellogg
When Catherine Terris's career in Hollywood hits the skids, she heads back to the site of her first great triumphs...Broadway! She takes the lead in a play which is being directed by Gordon Evans, the man who was both her Svengali and her lover. Evans is still bitter that she walked out on him to become the toast of Hollywood years earlier. Can Terris and Evans put aside their mutual animosity long enough to make a go of this production. The way things start off, it doesn't seem likely.
Operation Secret
Capt. Armand Dubois
After assisting the French Underground during WWII, an American Officer is later accused of murder and subversive activities by former colleagues. Based on the actual exploits of Lieutenant Colonel Peter Ortiz.
Cattle Town
Pepe
The governor of Texas sends a cowboy to keep the peace between ranchers and a land baron.
Mara Maru
Steven Ranier
An American salvage diver plunges into dangerous intrigue around a sunken treasure in the Philippines.
The Tanks Are Coming
Danny Kolowicz
An American tank crew fights its way into Germany in World War II.
Force of Arms
Sheridan
During the winter of 1943, the German army halted the American advance in the mountains of Italy; back-and-forth combat decimates Joe Peterson's platoon. On leave in Naples, Joe meets WAC lieutenant Eleanor MacKay; initially cool, she begins to melt during a bombing raid. Their romance develops despite Joe's periodic returns to the front. But whether he'll come back in the end becomes more than doubtful...
Fort Worth
Joe Castro
Ex-gunfighter Ned Britt returns to Fort Worth after the civil war to help run a newspaper which is against ambitious men and their schemes for control.
Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison
Jeff Riordan
A warden and his assistant clash over prison reform, triggering a violent riot.
I Was a Communist for the FBI
Joe Cvetic
A fact-based story about a man who posed as an American Communist for years as part of a secret plan to infiltrate their organization.
Operation Pacific
Jonesy
During WWII, Duke E. Gifford is second in command of the USS Thunderfish, a submarine which is firing off torpedoes that either explode too early or never explode at all. It's a dilemma that he'll eventually take up personally. Even more personal is his quest to win back his ex-wife, a nurse; but he'll have to win her back from a navy flier who also happens to be his commander's little brother.
Breakthrough
Edward P. Rojeck
Filmed with the full cooperation of the U.S. Army, Breakthrough is a lean, no-nonsense war film set during the 1944 invasion of the continent.
Three Secrets
Sergeant (uncredited)
A five-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a devastating plane crash in the mountains of California. When the newspapers reveal the boy was adopted and that the crash occurred on his birthday, three women begin to ponder if it's the son each gave up for adoption. As the three await news of his rescue at a mountain cabin, they recall incidents from five years earlier and why they were forced to give up their son.
The Killer That Stalked New York
Health Department Investigator (uncredited)
In New York, Sheila Bennet and her spouse, Matt Krane, are trying to unload a trove of rare jewels they smuggled into America from Cuba, but the police are hot on the couple's trail. Meanwhile, government officials begin a desperate search for an unknown individual who is infecting the city with smallpox.
Saddle Tramp
Denver
Carefree Chuck Connor is on his way west and stops off to see an old friend and his four lads. When his host is killed in a riding accident Chuck realises he must take care of the family. They hit the road and he takes a job on a ranch, but he has to keep the children hidden as his boss hates kids. There's also tension with the neighbouring ranch, and when a girl on the run from her nasty uncle joins the family unannounced Chuck wonders what he has done to deserve all this.
A Lady Without Passport
Italian (uncredited)
A secret service agent falls in love with an illegal immigrant.
D.O.A.
Frank Bigelow is about to die, and he knows it. The accountant has been poisoned and has only 24 hours before the lethal concoction kills him. Determined to find out who his murderer is, Frank, with the help of his assistant and girlfriend, Paula, begins to trace back over his last steps. As he frantically tries to unravel the mystery behind his own impending demise, his sleuthing leads him to a group of crooked businessmen and another murder.
The Secret Fury
Dr. Roth (uncredited)
The wedding of Ellen and David is halted by a stranger who insists that the bride is already married to someone else. Though the flabbergasted Ellen denies the charge, the interloper produces enough evidence that his accusation must be investigated. Ellen and David travel to the small coastal town where her first wedding allegedly occurred. There, they meet a number of individuals whose stories make Ellen question her own sanity.
Twelve O'Clock High
Bombardier (uncredited)
In the early days of daylight bombing raids over Germany, General Frank Savage must take command of a 'hard luck' bomber group. Much of the story deals with his struggle to whip his group into a disciplined fighting unit in spite of heavy losses, and withering attacks by German fighters over their targets.
Beyond Glory
Second Detective (uncredited)
Thinking he may have caused the death of his commanding officer Captain Daniels in Tunisia, Rocky visits Daniels' widow. She falls for him, he falls for her, she encourages him to go to West Point. While there he faces serious disciplinary review for having forced a plebe into resigning. He may even be court-martialled.