David Caruso first tasted fame playing the redheaded, brooding Detective John Kelly on the hit television series NYPD Blue, though most Americans knew him simply as "that dude who bared ass on prime time." Shortly afterwards, he earned a reputation as an insufferable prima donna whose numerous belligerent rants about the show's script contributed to producer David Milch's heart attack on the set. After NYPD Blue's producers released Caruso from his contract after just one season, he quickly faded from public favor. Nowadays, he is best remembered for a scene in an early South Park episode in which those lovable trash-talking kiddies encourage Kyle's baby brother to "do your impression of David Caruso's career!" The toddler subsequently takes a nosedive into a nearby snow bank.
Biography
David Caruso was born on January 7, 1956 in Queens, New York and grew up in the Forest Hills area. Little has been made public about his formative years, although in interviews Caruso alludes to a childhood of chronic truancy and hanging out with petty thieves. As a teenager, he worked as an usher in the Midway Theater, where he met a show business manager who convinced him to try his hand at acting. In his typically arrogant fashion, Caruso has this to say of his first interview with the manager: "I'd never seen a script before. I read the scene. And she said, 'If you're going to work for me, you can't lie to me. You've done this before.' So my first acting job was making up all these fake credits."
Those first acting jobs consisted mostly of commercials, until Caruso moved out to Los Angeles to try to land better work. He made his film debut in 1980's Without Warning, a horror flick about bloodthirsty extraterrestrial invaders (surprisingly starring Jack Palance and Martin Landau). Starting with this film, Caruso embarked on a rather unremarkable career as a character actor. He had a minor role in the Oscar-winning An Officer and a Gentleman as the guy who drowns, another small part in First Blood as a sheriff's deputy who attempts to shoot Rambo, a supporting role in the 1986 travesty Blue City in which the Brat Pack turns detective, and he plays a psychopath in 1987's China Girl, a particularly violent interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Caruso supplemented his film paycheck with television work, mostly in made for TV movies.
During this early stage of his career, Caruso discovered that his flaming red hair was problematic. He was constantly advised to dye it, as conventional Hollywood wisdom held that leading men were either tall and dark or blond and buff, with no room for the poor neglected firecrotches. One producer even went so far as to inform Caruso that his hair made him look like MAD Magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman and that redheads went out of style after James Cagney. On the other hand, the rarity of male redheaded actors actually worked in Caruso's favor, as his hair color provided a relatively unique characteristic that made him memorable to both audiences and industry insiders. By the late 1980s, Caruso had made a name for himself as an actor who brought a pensive, tortured intensity to his characters. He began to get work in bigger films, playing a gangster opposite Christopher Walken in King of New York in 1990, and winning some critical acclaim as Robert de Niro's macho partner in 1993's Mad Dog and Glory.
In 1992, television mogul Steven Bochco sold ABC on the idea of a cop drama set in New York (Bochco's previous work as a producer includes Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, Doogie Howser, M.D., and the misguidedly hilarious musical series Cop Rock). As Bochco went about casting for his new series, tentatively titled NYPD Blue, he found himself in a quandary regarding the leading role. He had originally written the part with actor Jimmy Smits in mind, but Smits was busy with other projects and turned down the offer. Bochco remembered an intense young actor who had played a recurring character on his previous series Hill Street Blues, and gave David Caruso a call.
As a show designed to focus on the gritty reality of New York police work, NYPD Blue was well written, had some inspired casting, and, perhaps most importantly, was advertised out the wazoo by ABC before it ever aired. In short, it had all the hallmarks of a hit series, and it did not disappoint. The show got a lot of press (and attention from censors) for its depictions of violence, coarse language, and controversial male nudity, which of course, could only help the ratings. Bochco gambled in hiring David Caruso, but the decision paid off, as Caruso became an unlikely prime time sex symbol. That is when the trouble started.
As David Caruso read reviews hailing him as the sexiest thing to hit television in the last decade, he allowed his already sizable ego to swell to immense proportions. It wasn't long before rumors (which apparently had some foundation in truth) began to circulate labeling Caruso as "difficult." He publicly complained about his paycheck and claimed that he was getting slighted in the show's plotlines, despite the fact that the majority of the action in each episode revolved around his character, John Kelly. This tide of ill will culminated in an emotionally charged discussion with producer and writer David Milch, as Caruso angrily tore up that week's script and vehemently demanded, "Who writes this shit?!" In the midst of the heated argument, Milch dropped to his knees and clutched his chest, suffering from a mild heart attack. As concerned crew members rushed to call an ambulance, Caruso stormed off in disgust.
Caruso had signed a four year contract for NYPD Blue, but in the summer of 1994 after shooting for the first season had wrapped, he approached the producers, demanding a pay raise. This sparked a series of highly publicized negotiations in which Caruso purportedly demanded $100,000 an episode, but the show's producers refused to pay him more than $80,000. The end result was that Caruso was released from his contract. According to Caruso, the decision to break the contract was his idea, as he wanted to pursue his career on the big screen. According to NYPD Blue producers, they let Caruso go because he was simply becoming too much of a pain in the ass. Whatever the reasons, Caruso's character was written out of the series in the fourth episode of the second season, replaced by Steven Bochco's original favorite Jimmy Smits.
Caruso's first post-Blue work was a leading role in the ironically titled Kiss of Death in 1995. Caruso plays an ex-con who is left to hang after the big crime boss for whom he'd been working skips town. The film was well received critically, but did poorly at the box office. The Kiss of Death producers had been counting on Caruso's established female following to generate revenue for the movie. Alas, the female viewers who had found Caruso irresistibly attractive as John Kelly were turned off by the media blitz that painted the actor as a self-absorbed prick. Much to David Caruso's chagrin, it appeared that most women don't prefer assholes after all.
Caruso followed up Kiss of Death with the movie Jade, released later that same year. Caruso plays an assistant district attorney attempting to track down the murderer of a wealthy art collector. His investigation puts him on the trail of a female sexual predator known by the pseudonym "Jade." Jade was rightfully accused of being a cheap knockoff of Basic Instinct, and the movie was in and out of theaters in a Hollywood minute, a pathetic last hurrah that signaled Caruso's descent into obscurity. In 1997, he attempted to return to television playing the title character in the new CBS drama Michael Hayes. The character of Michael Hayes was basically John Kelly rehashed as a lawyer, and the series tanked. CBS cancelled Michael Hayes after just one season.
His dreams as a leading man shattered, Caruso took a couple years off before reluctantly swallowing some humble pie and returning to Hollywood as a supporting actor. In 2000, he took a supporting role in Proof of Life, starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe (coincidentally, this film led to some romantic shenanigans between Ryan and Crowe, and the subsequent dissolution of Ryan's marriage to Dennis Quaid). He landed a slightly larger role in 2001's Session 9, a horror film about a cleaning crew contracted to rid a condemned insane asylum of asbestos, only to become possessed by the spirit of a dead inmate.
This fall, David Caruso returns to the small screen with a large role in the new drama CSI: Miami, a spinoff series based on CBS's hit CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He will star opposite Kim Delaney, another NYPD Blue alum (she joined the show as Jimmy Smits' love interest the year after Caruso left). David Caruso hopes that CSI: Miami heralds his comeback, and the series does hold promise. However, thus far, the show has garnered mostly lukewarm reviews. It faces some tough competition, airing opposite another forensic drama Crossing Jordan on NBC and, more formidably, Monday Night Football on ABC.
Tidbits and Trivia
Before David Caruso became an actor, he used to pick up extra cash by appearing in police lineups at the NYPD 112th Precinct for $25 a pop.
As Caruso left the NYPD Blue set for the last time, he quipped to reporters, "NYPD Blue will not be successful when I leave." His skills at prognostication are lousy - the show jumped up 20 places in the ratings after Caruso left, and at the time of this writeup, NYPD Blue has just begun its 10th season.
While Caruso's acting career was foundering, he opened an upscale clothing boutique called Steam with his wife, Margaret Buckley. Steam is conveniently located in South Miami, allowing Caruso to split his time between the location shooting for his new television show and managing the store.
David Caruso today is rather sheep-faced in interviews, a startling contrast to the headstrong young egomaniac who made headlines in the mid-1990s. Caruso is humbly contrite, admitting that he "mishandled the NYPD Blue situation quite handily." He says his job now is to be consistent, referring to both the quality of his performances and his apologetic demeanor for his past mistakes.
Workography
Movies
Television (including made for TV movies)
Sources:
http://www.imdb.com
http://www.hollywood.com/celebs/bio/celeb/342823
http://www.canoe.ca/JamMoviesArtistsC/caruso_david.html
http://www.salon.com/sept97/entertainment/caruso970912.html
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/tv/0902/23csi.html
http://www.guyville.com/flyville/celeb_view/David%20Caruso.html
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/tv/orl-feaspecsptv082502aug25.story